Learning to Live Again
by Weezy815
Summary: The world has fallen to pieces, Lily has been kidnapped, the dead roam the earth, and the cherry on top is the hick that rescues her from the woods.
1. The Rescue

Yes, this is amother Daryl Dixon fanfiction. I apologize but I'm not ashamed of it.

So this story actually was intended to end up on here, but I couldn't wait to upload it! So here's the first chapter. It's a long one.

The fic follows the show because my imagination is somewhat limited so those who have seen the show should definitely know what going on and hopefully I've included enough for those who haven't seen the show to know what going on. I don't have an ending for the vic because the show is not over but hopefully I can keep my readers happy.

Lily Sullivan is my OC and I would appreciate it if you didn't steal her or my fic. A friend of mine had that happen to her and it was devastating.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Lily woke to darkness and constriction. Opening her eyes, she saw she was in a bedroom. By the appearance of the room, she could tell she was in a log cabin somewhere out in the woods. Somewhere she'd never been before. She also could tell that she was bound and gagged. Why? What she doing out here in this strange place? She forced herself to a sitting position to better see her surroundings. The bed was against the wall closest to the door which was on her right. In front Of her was what once used to be a window but it was all boarded up now. There was a small bedside table on her left.

There were only so many different things she could do in this situation. She could wait until her captor got back but that was not going to happen. Her other more likely option was to free herself from all this duct tape. This cabin had to have a kitchen with scissors and knives, so she opted to roll over onto the floor.

A sharp pain shot through her upper arm which caused her to emit a muffled groan. Looking towards her throbbing arm, she saw a metal door stop. What was a metal doorstop doing in the bedroom?

Just then she remembered seeing a large man in a red flannel wedging it in the door so she couldn't get out.

She forced herself against the wall and pushed up to her feet. Once there she opened the door. It was unlocked. That was almost too easy.

Peering out the door, she could see the kitchen right outside the door and to the right of the kitchen was a living room with a small fireplace, a couch, and two armchairs.

Lily sank back to the floor and began to make her way towards the kitchen. It was only when she arrived in the kitchen that she noticed all the drawers were zip tied shut preventing her from opening any. She leaned against a cabinet and sighed looking around the room.

As she sat in the kitchen, her eyes fell upon the fire stokers next to the fireplace. Heaving another sigh she began to make her way to the fireplace. It took her ten minutes to make her way to the fireplace and by that time a fine sweat had appeared on her forehead.

She was reaching for one of the fire pokers when the wood creaked outside. Her breath caught in her throat. Was it a walker? How could she forget about walkers? How much noise had she been making? She pushed herself behind one of the armchairs next to the fireplace.

The door was silent as it opened. She refused to breathe but that did not stop her from looking around the side of the chair.

He was human. He was not a walker. But he was still a stranger, an armed stranger. Her memories before waking up were still fuzzy but she remembered enough to know that this was not the man who attacked her. She craned her neck so far her feet slid out from under her causing a quiet wooshing noise. The man spun on his heels and fired an arrow at the armchair. It passed through the armchair inches from her face. She screamed. The muffled scream alerted the man that what he'd just heard was not a walker.

She heard an arrow being knocked in place as slow footsteps moved ever closer to her. With his crossbow raised he leaned around the armchair to meet her terrified gaze.

When he saw her cowering behind the chair, trussed with duck tape, he slightly lowered his crossbow.

"You bit?" His voice made her jump. "Asked ya a question. You bit?" He pointed his crossbow towards her arm.

Nervously, she stole a glance down at her arm which was now covered in blood. That's where she'd fallen on the doorstop. She shook her head no.

He grabbed her ankles and dragged her out from behind the chair. Once in front of the fireplace, he placed his bow down on the couch before leaning over to unbutton her shirt. Was he going to rape her too? She began to fight against him with whatever strength she had.

"Calm down," he hissed sitting down on her hips and continuing to unbutton her shirt. He pulled the shirt down from her shoulders exposing the bleeding arm and the tank top she wore underneath.

"Got medical supplies here?" he asked looking down at her with small eyes.

She had to steady her breathing before responding. She really had no idea if there were medical supplies here or not so she shrugged her shoulders. With a sigh, he hopped to his feet and began to free the drawers in the kitchen.

Lily watched him rummage around and she saw a dirty man wearing a grimy sleeveless muscle shirt and jeans held up by a leather belt and his long sleeve shirt. Slung over his shoulder was a string of squirrels he'd undoubtedly hunted. Sticking above the top of his boot was the hilt of a knife. He looked down at her through squinted eyes.

"You live here?"

She looked around the room once more as if seeing it for the first time and shook her head no.

"Then how did you get here?"

Again she shrugged her shoulders.

When he rummaged through the bedroom he emerged with what she could only assume was a quizzical look on his face, but it was gone quickly as he approached her again. She shied away from him despite him only trying to bandage her arm.

This wasn't how people treated each other these days. No one just asked three questions to someone who was found bound in a cabin and then fixed up their arm. It was more like shoot now and don't help at all.

Once he was done bandaging her arm, he replaced her shirt. He cast one final glance down at her before rummaging through the kitchen again where he strung food supplies on the string over his shoulder and crammed others in his pockets.

She repositioned herself to a sitting position to watch him go through the cabin one last time.

He walked over to her and took her good arm in his hand to heft her over his shoulder. With the hand not holding onto her he took his crossbow from the couch and walked outside.

"Stay quiet."

With walkers everywhere, being loud was the last thing on Lily's mind, but this man was definitely an interesting character.

They walked through the woods for twenty minutes before he slowed his pace, cut the tape from her ankles and placed her on her feet.

He took the shirt from his waist and wrapped it into a thin strand. Lily was looking around the woods and at the motorcycle when she saw him trying to blindfold her. So far he seemed to mean well so she didn't make a fuss when the world went dark, but she did gasp when he lifted her in his arms and placed her on the back of the bike.

"Bike's not really built for two, so you better hold on." She almost detected a smile in his voice.

He remained behind the bike. Lily listened to what he was doing and heard the buckle of his belt come undone. Her head snapped toward the sound. The man interpreted her jumpy movements and placed a rough hand on her shoulder.

"Calm down, sweetheart," he said almost mockingly. The tape around her wrists was abruptly severed as the man took his seat in front of her.

"Wrap your arms around me." She did as he said and to her relief he only used his belt to bind her wrists around his waist. He didn't seem to have any ulterior motives.

"It's gonna be a long trip, maybe two or three hours, so if you need something let me know or just keep it to yourself. You'll probably keep it to yourself..."

The ride started out well, the sounds of nature died away after about half an hour of riding and she could only assume that they were in the city, but the city didn't have bumpy roads. She felt herself sliding off the back of the bike and like anyone else would do she tensed. She gripped tightly to whatever was close, only a few minutes later did she realize she'd been holding tightly onto this man.

"Hey," he exclaimed quite suddenly. "If that's what you're after all you had to do was ask."

She jumped when she noticed she'd pinched her legs around him. Her hands had also clenched tightly around his waist. He laughed when she gasped and released her grip, almost slid off and returned her grip just as tightly.

"You need a break?" He felt her chin move up and down on his back and slowly moved the bike over to the side of the road.

He took her wrists in his hands and lifted them over his head and pulled the blindfold from her eyes.

"Pee now."

She sat on the back of the bike for a moment as she watched him walk off to the side of the road. He looked back at her.

"Pee."

She got up and found the nearest concealing obstacle to pee behind. Everything around them was deserted and grey with the exception of the small patch of white lilies growing in the only patch of sunlight.

When she emerged again, the man was readjusting his jeans.

"You got a name?"

What kind of a stupid question was that? She nodded.

"Spell it in the dirt." She ignored his remark and walked over to the patch of lilies in the sun and nudged them with the toe of her shoe.

"Lily? Were your parents hippies?" he scoffed. "Come on. Still got a ways to go."


	2. The Camp

Firstly a shout out to Guest who gave me my first review! I've had some chapters saved for loading but I want to make sure I do this story right so I'm reading and rereading trying to make everything fit.

I'm gonna do my best to update daily or at least every other day so please stick with me.

Lily is my OC as well as the rearranging of the original episodes to make my idea fit with the show.

* * *

She sat on the back of the bike as he retied the shirt over her eyes. He sat down and pulled her arms over his head. His hand was warm against the small of her back as he pulled her closer to him.

"Don't go falling off now."

The remaining trip was spent in relative silence and no one slipped off the bike, but then again maybe that was because she couldn't let go.

The bike began to slow as it made it's way uphill. After another minute, the engine turned off.

"Daryl, we sent you hunting for food, not people," a man said.

"Guess you could say she found me," the man who saved her responded. He lifted her hands over his head again and lifted her from the bike removing the blindfold. The man who had addressed Daryl was wearing a worn police uniform. The bike caught the corner of her eye and she saw it could hold two people comfortably. When she looked around the camp, she saw other survivors. Joy flooded her because she'd thought she was one of the only survivors.

"Where did you find her?"

"She was tied up in a cabin in the woods. I found her when I was hunting."

"What do you expect us to do with her?"

"Beats the hell out of me. Lily shouldn't be a problem though. Hardly says a word." He smiled patting her cheek before ripping the tape from her mouth quickly. Better he did it quickly than take his time, she thought.

"Lily," it was the police officer who spoke to her. She met his gaze. "What were you doing in the woods?"

She looked away from his eyes.

"Hey..." Daryl meant to say something but turned his attention to taking his belt back and putting it back in his pants.

"Lori!" A woman with long dark brown hair walked up to join the group. "Lori, this is Lily. She needs medical attention. See to her will you?"

She smiled at Lily. "Of course, follow me."

"Lor," Daryl called waving her over away from Lily and the police officer. It was apparent that Lori didn't like the nickname but she would listen to what he had to say anyway.

"I'm Shane," the police officer introduced himself.

"Lily Sullivan."

"Look, I know you're probably not in the mood to talk but Lori will ask some questions and everyone would appreciate it if you answered them." She nodded her head in understanding.

"Lily, was it?" Lori asked.

"Yes."

"Come this way." She took Lily's hand and led her away from the men smiling. "Let's get away from all these men."

Lori took Lily to an RV in the camp and sat her down at the table where she began to tend to Lily's wrists, arm, and head.

"So where did Daryl find you?"

"In a cabin in the woods."

"You been living out there?"

It was a moment before Lily could respond. "No. I was taken there."

"Oh, so someone you knew found you and took you out there? That's good to hear."

"No." She sighed. "There was this big guy... I was hiding with some father who had taken me in. He'd lost his daughter to the walkers and when he found me took me under his wing. Then this giant burly man showed up out of the blue one day. He came with guns and shot the man watching me and he took me back to his place." Tears had filled Lily's eyes. "I can't remember much..."

"It's ok. Take your time."

"I remember him on top of me... Several times... It wasn't just him though. There was another man from time to time."

"Oh, honey." Lori took Lily in her arms as she cried. "It's ok. You don't have to say any more."

Only a few more tears were shed before Lily gained control of herself.

"I'm going to go talk to Shane. I'll be right outside if you need me."

Lily watched Lori walk out the door of the RV. The second Lori set foot out the door Lily saw her make eye contact with Daryl and give him a nod.

"What's the consensus, babe?" Shane asked.

"She's been raped, like Daryl suspected... She was kidnapped by the man who shot her protectors and then he proceeded to use her for sex. She doesn't pose a threat to anybody here. She's just a scared girl who's been on her own for a long time. Should I make room for her in my tent?"

"She knows Daryl..." Shane pondered aloud. "Put her in with him."

"Him?" Lori asked shocked almost breathless. "You trust him?"

"Look at it through her eyes. She's been tied up in this cabin for who knows how long and then this guy appears out of no where, rescues her and brings her to safety. She'll feel a little bit safer with him than with you or me. She doesn't know us. And if she does try to escape, he'll hear her. He hears everything. Doesn't he?"

"Yeah, he does." Lori was about to reenter the RV to tell Lily about her lodging accommodations when she saw Lily had heard everything.

"I wouldn't want to impose upon you and your husband."

"You wouldn't be, dear. And he's not my husband. Daryl is the only one who's got room in his tent anyway...I'll get you a change of clothes."


	3. The Fire

Lily is my OC as well as the changes in the show.

* * *

Lily changed before stepping outside. She now wore a white tank top tucked into a pair of well fitting jeans with a flannel on top. Outside the group was eating the squirrels Daryl had hunted. She didn't realize how late in the day it was. Next to Lori was the only open spot.

"It's always nice to have a change of clothes," Lily said sitting down.

"You should eat," Shane told her handing her a squirrel leg.

She ate it and more. As she barfed it up later she regretted eating so much so quickly.

"Come up, hon," Lori patted her back. "Get rid of it."

"I should be offended!" Daryl shouted. "That's my cooking you're tossing up over there." That made a few people laugh stiffly. It was strange to see how the others in the group treated him.

Lily looked up at Lori through apologetic eyes. "I haven't eaten so much in a long time... My stomach isn't used to it..."

Lori smiled placing both hands on her back. "There's no need to apologize."

After the eventful meal, it was time for to settle down for the evening. An elderly man took watch on top of the RV while the rest of the group said good night. Lily wondered if that man had heard her story when Lori was cleaning her up. After a few more minutes of siting by the fire, Lily realized that everyone had gone to bed. That is all but the elderly man on top the RV, Daryl, and her. When Lily looked across the fire at Daryl, he was already looking at her and had been for a while.

Instead of looking away like she normally would have, she held the gaze. After a moment of staring at each other across the fire he pointed the squirrel bone he'd been using as a toothpick over his shoulder towards the woods.

"Feel like sleeping yet?"

"No."

"How come?" He tossed the bone aside as he kicked dirt onto the fire smothering what remained of it. Seemed she didn't have a choice. It was time for bed. "Been a long day for you."

"It has. But it's not the sleeping I'm worried about. It's about waking up. I'm afraid everything will be a dream and I'll wake back up in that filthy cabin."

Daryl thought a moment before speaking. "This camp is strange but it's not that strange. Besides..." he gestured for her to go ahead of him to the tent. "You let me know if you ever see that man again... because I'll make sure you won't have to."

She had to take a moment to let what he said sink in. He just said he'd kill the man who took her. This man was a complete stranger and he offered to kill a man for her, another stranger. To her a life was a precious thing and dreadful to waste, but a man had taken her and abused her and she wanted nothing but the worst for him. Daryl offered the worst for him and she knew it, but what startled her was how willing she was to accept his offer. How much had she changed since things changed?

"Tents a bit messy..." To Lily it looked like a palace because it wasn't the cabin. "Take my brothers spot. He shouldn't care." He pointed to the messier of the two spots in the tent and she sat down. As she sat, something crunched beneath her. She pulled out a small bone split in half.

Daryl chuckled. "Ain't that just like him. Leavin' food in his bed." She tossed the bone outside the tent. "Get comfortable," he said pulling a bandana from his pocket.

It was hot outside which was why Daryl wore his sleeveless muscle shirt and why Lily laid down on her side facing Daryl's spot on top of the sleeping bag instead of crawling into it.

"Gimme your hands." Expecting what was coming next Lily extended her wrists allowing him to tie them together.

"Well, aren't you eager?" Her cheeks got hot. "Just a precaution."

Lily settled down. The sleeping bag smelled funny, but at least she wasn't going to be tied down to it.

Daryl shuffled around the tent a little bit longer before settling down, but by that time Lily was already fast asleep.


	4. The News

r2j591: I must thank you for your persistence. Without it I wouldn't be writing as much. You are motivation me to get this done even though all you said was 'Update soon please!'. Thanks. That's all I needed.

Sorry guys, these chapters are much longer than ones I'm used to writing, so I apologize if they get boring. Thanks for sticking with me.

Lily is my OC and I claim the episode edits to make my idea fit. Everything else belongs to Scott Gimple I suppose. Enjoy.

* * *

When she woke, the sun was high in the sky and a light sweat covered her face. She lifted her head confused for a second. The sun was out. She wasn't confined in a boarded up room. A gentle breeze ruffled her hair as it blew in through the opening of the tent. Something outside the opening moved and Lily's blurry eyes focused on it. It was a boy.

"Hey, Sleepin' Beauty." It was Daryl. It wasn't a dream. He crawled in the opening of the tent and crouched down. She threw her arms over his head and hugged him tightly. He had never been so shocked as he was at that moment.

"It's not a dream," she whispered.

"Of course it ain't a dream!" he said almost angrily pulling her arms from around his neck and untying them.

"You didn't move," the boy said to Lily.

"What?"

"You didn't move at all."

She looked at Daryl confused. "You slept in the same position all night. That's what he means. To be honest, you looked dead at some parts during the night."

"You must have been tired."

She nodded her head. "I'm Lily. What's your name?"

"Carl."

"Hi, Carl," she gave a weak smile. "What time is it?"

"Late afternoon. Time for lunch."

"Lunch is?"

"Squirrel," Daryl smiled holding up some of the left overs from the previous night. Her stomach rolled.

Carl burst out laughing from the look on Lily's face and Daryl was too.

When the three of them joined the group, Carl was riding on Lily's back and all three were smiling full tooth grins.

"Carl!" It was Lori calling him. "Leave her alone."

"It's ok," Lily smiled. "He's not bothering me."

"Then give me a hand."

Lily walked over to Lori who was hanging laundry and dropped Carl to the ground. Daryl walked over and began talking with Shane and Rick.

"How did you sleep?"

"Apparently I didn't move all night. I looked dead."

"You must have really needed the sleep. So I have to ask, what was it like... You know, sharing a tent with the biggest redneck there is?" Lori asked in a hushed voice so only the women around could hear her.

"It was fine. It's been the first time I've felt this safe in a long time."

"Those are words I never thought I'd hear associated with Daryl..."

"He's a tough one," Carl added.

The woman a tree down hanging a pair of pants added her insight to Daryl. She was older than the others with short grey hair but not old enough to be a grandmother. "The way I've seen him act with you is the first time I've seen him do anything of the sort."

"What do you mean?" Lily asked.

"He doesn't let anyone near his tent which is why we were all shocked to hear he'd let you stay with him," a young woman with blonde wavy hair said. "I'm Andrea by the way."

"Carol." The short grey haired lady said.

"Lets just say he's not one to bring something living back from one of his trips," Lori said in a hushed voice. "And he doesn't joke around with people much either."

"Today was the first time I've seen him smile," Carol said.

"So I assume he doesn't offer to protect people often either?" Lily asked as she pinned a shirt to the string.

"No. No, he's not," Andrea replied. "Are you saying he did that to you too?"

"Yeah, he did."

"What's she got that we don't?"

"Let Daryl be Daryl."

Lori was smiling from ear to ear about something. She'd hardly heard the conversation at all.

"What's got you so happy?"

"My husband came back this morning."

Then as if on cue to ruin a sweet moment, a shout came from the area by the RV. All the women turned to see Shane, Daryl and another man arguing over something.

"You handcuffed my brother to a roof and you just left him there?"

"That's the Daryl we know," Andrea said pointing to his shouting form.

"Yeah."

Daryl thought for a moment before throwing himself at the man who was most likely Lori's husband. Shane saw the attack coming and tackled him.

Daryl drew his knife getting off the ground.

Lily ran towards the group to attempt to stop it, but the second she made it to the scuffle she didn't know what to do.

Andrea pulled her from the scuffle right before the knife sailed through the air.

"You'd best let me go!" Daryl spits when Shane puts him in a choke hold.

"Nah, I think it's better if I don't."

"Hey, choke holds illegal."

"You can file a complaint."

"Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day."

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. You think we can manage that? You think we can manage that?"

He looked up at Lily before complying to the calm conversation. Shane released Daryl and they both regained their breath.

"What I did was not on a whim," Rick begins. "Your brother does not work and play well with others."

"It's not Rick's fault. I had the key," T-Dog fessed up. "I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?"

"Well, I dropped it in a drain."

He sighed before getting up. "Well, if it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't."

"Well, Maybe this will. I chained the door to the roof- so the geeks couldn't get at him- with a padlock."

"-its gotta count for something," Rick added.

Lily watched Daryl wipe tears from his eyes. "Hell with y'all! Just tell me where he is so's I can go get him!"

"He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori said running to Rick's rescue.

"I'm going back," Rick said. By the way Lori clung to him, Lily could only assume that he was her husband. If he was her husband then what was her relationship with Shane?


	5. The Trip

Here's a short one for you guys. You've earned it.

Lily is my OC agh.. you know the drill.

* * *

A group of four prepared to leave. All Lily could learn from them was that Merle, Daryl's brother was still alive and that Daryl was going to stop at nothing to get him back. A bag of guns that Rick had dropped was also thrown into the deal as well so the trip would be rewarded by retrieving a bag of guns and a brother.

He was going to change completely when his brother returned and Lily feared that the only person she knew was going to be lost forever. Yes, he was very rough around the edges but he was all she knew and it would be difficult losing him. She returned to the laundry just to separate herself from the dispute of the group.

"Daryl, talk to her before you leave." Shane ordered him. Lily lifted her head to see them talking but dropped it when she saw they were already looking at her. "You've done nothing but talk to her non stop since you brought her back. You can't just leave without saying something." He threw his crossbow over his shoulder before stomping over to where Lily was hanging clothes. Carol removed herself from the premises quickly while Andrea didn't back away until she knew Daryl would not hurt her. Lily took a step back and Daryl grabbed her arm roughly.

"They left my brother behind. I'm gonna go get him." He made to walk away but turned and added, "When he comes back you're gonna need a new place to stay."

She didn't know what to say, but she knew she had to say something. "Take...care," she told his retreating form. He spun to look at her, surprised that someone was showing concern towards him. "I hope...I hope you find your brother."

The group proceeded to continue working out a plan. It was settled that Rick, Glen, Daryl and T-Dog would go back out to get Merle.

Andrea gave what Lily would call a distasteful look towards her.

"No one should have to lose a member of their family."


	6. The Frogs

I just want to say that I have posted so many chapters because I have them ready. It won't be so frequent farther down the road, I hate to say, but it's true.

Lily is my OC…blah blah blah everything else belongs to Scott Gimple.

* * *

"How about a swim?" Lori asked Lily.

"A what?"

"A swim. Come on. I have to go get my son anyway."

"If I may ask, why do you not want officer Shane with your son?"

"It was a mistake I made and I don't want Carl getting hurt." The two of them walked down to the rock quarry which Lily had not seen before. She obviously had not traveled far outside of camp.

Laughter echoed from inside the quarry. Looking down, she saw Carl and Shane playing in the water.

"What are they doing?"

"Shane's trying to catch frogs." Lori took off into a brisk jog down the trail into the quarry to get to Carl faster. Lily just followed behind her.

"Stay there." Lori ran off in their direction and quickly slowed to a walk to make it appear she hadn't been running.

Lily just walked off to the side and found a large boulder to sit on. She dangled her feet in the water. The women were washing clothes in the quarry while Carol's husband watched from behind them.

"Hey!" Carl greeted as he jumped up on the boulder next to her.

"Hey." Lori must have trusted Lily with Carl because she hardly let him leave Dale's sight or out of her own. It made her feel like she was fitting into the group.

"What are you doing down here?"

"Your mom invited me down for a swim."

"Then why not take one?"

She smacked he hands on her legs and hopped up. "You're right. Let's swim." She stripped down to her pants and undershirt before wading into the water. "Oh, this is cold!"

"Cold? It's not cold!"

Spinning quickly she splashed Carl. "Gotcha!"

Sophia had turned to look up at the two of them playing in the water. Carl looked up and waved Sophia over, but her father told her to stay back. He wouldn't allow her to play with Carl.

Lily dove in the water completely submerging herself. The water felt so nice as she swam along going under and cleaning herself as completely as she could still wearing clothes. It was going to be a new start for her, she could feel it.

"How's the water feel?" Carol asked from her lookout spot.

"I wish I could do this more often," Lily replied.

"Carol!" It was Ed shouting to her. "You have no business with her. Come here."

"Yeah, don't we all," Andrea whispered ignoring Ed's comment.

"Hey, little miss. I don't want to hear any lip from you," Ed snapped at Andrea. "Come on, Carol."

"She doesn't have to go anywhere with you!"

Ed turned around and slapped Carol. Shane who had just had an interesting conversation with Lori was walking back to camp when the commotion broke out between the women and Ed began brawling. He ran over to them as Lily made or shore to intercept the kids before they got close.

"Mom!" Sophia screamed when Ed hit her again. Shane's fist collided with Ed's head making him release Carol. Lily held onto the kids keeping them away from the fight.

Shane continued to beat the crap out of Ed as Carol cried and Sophia screamed for her mother. The minutes rolled on past as Shane beat Ed to a pulp. When he was done, Ed's face was covered in blood and his nose was most likely broken. It was at that moment that Carol approached her husband crying and apologizing. Lily let Sophia join her mother.

Amy and Andrea and Jacqui looked up to see her holding Carl.

"Come on, bud. Get on my back. I'll take you back to your mom." Without objection Carl crawled on Lily's back and Shane escorted them back to camp and not a word was said.

After the death of the man who had kidnapped her, Lily had felt a huge change in her personality. She felt nothing toward his death and she was beginning to feel nothing but joy towards Ed being beaten. Maybe it was because of the way he treated his wife that made her feel the way she did. After all, he was overly controlling and needed someone to teach him a lesson.


	7. The Stars

The night was spent sleepless. Even though she barely knew the man, it just didn't seem right sleeping in the tent without him. She just remained lying there staring out the top of the tent at the stars. She eventually got up and laid of the ground on the very top of the hill.

"Can't sleep?"

"Carl? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"I can sleep when I'm dead."

She laughed. "That's true. Join me." Carl fell to his back and touched his head to hers.

"Are you ok?"

"No, not right now, but I will be. It's weird Daryl not being here."

"You like him don't you?"

That was fast. "Well, he's all I really know so his presence makes me feel safe. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it does." There was hardly a pause before he asked his next question. "What happened to you? Why do you feel so comfortable around him?"

She sighed. "You're mom won't be happy about you askin', but I will tell you as best as I can." There was another sigh before continuing. "I ended up alone. My sister had been killed and I started out on my own. One day there was this man out gathering food and he found me and took me under his wing. His name was George, like the twin from Harry Potter. He'd just lost his daughter Ariel, and I looked like what he imagined his daughter to look like when she'd grown up. We lived together peacefully for a few weeks and had developed quite a team when we'd crossed the path of another man out scavenging for food. We offered him a place to stay but he declined. A few days later he showed up and killed George." She paused. "He then took me to a cabin in the woods. There he...abused me. Over and over. I don't know how long I'd been there when Daryl found me, but the second he did, it was all I could do not to cry with joy. There was someone here who was going to help me and he did. He did. He got me out of there and now I'm here with you fine people. That's why I feel safe with Daryl around."

"That's a good reason," Carl said flatly, so flatly it made Lily chuckle. "How did you cope with him hurting you?"

"The key is keeping yourself busy. That's how you can keep your mind off what's eating at you."

"What are you going to do to keep yourself busy?"

"Don't know. Everyone is going to think that I don't want to work and they're going to tell me to go rest so I will need your help to stay busy. Can you help me with that?"

"Yeah, this could be fun."

They talked until morning when the elderly man took watch on top of the RV.


	8. The Attack

r2j591: As of right now I have stuff written up until the third season. I'm thinking I should end it there but it really depends on how I feel. But I would never leave you guys without a proper ending. It'd be like stopping a show halfway through a season for no apparent reason. I'd at least attempt to give you guys closure before stopping writing.

The reason for all the time with Carl is because everyone says they hate Carl and they have valid reasons for saying so, but the guy has seen death first hand, and has to live with the fact that he might die everyday. It's not easy living during a zombie apocalypse (even though they never say zombie once in the show…). I'm just trying to make Carl seem more lovable. Kinda like the relationship he has with Michone.

* * *

The pair of them woke to Sophia shaking them awake.

"What are you doing on the ground? Wake up!"

They woke up late and Dale insisted they go swimming after breakfast and Lori insisted. Carol even told her to take Sophia with them. They wouldn't say why but Lily could only assume it had something to do with the man digging incessantly up on the hill. All throughout breakfast she'd see more and more people catch him digging up on the hill and it had begin to worry people. Lily could only think that they didn't want her or the kids getting involved with the situation so they sent them away.

Despite the questions about the man on the hill and whether Daryl, T-Dog, Glenn, and Rick were ok, the three of them had a blast swimming all day and were exhausted by the time dinner was rolling around so they began to make her way back to camp.

"Sun's setting. Shouldn't the men be back by now?"

"Worried about Daryl?" Carl teased.

"I just thought they'd be back by now. Hey, I've gotta go, I'll be right behind you. Just keep going." The camp was within sight so she figured she'd be safe from Lori's wrath of taking her eyes off Carl and Sophia for two seconds.

"Alright."

Lily made her way around a tree and relieved herself. On her way back to the camp, she heard a twig snap. Quickly she spun around to look for the source of the sound. There was nothing around. She began to walk back to camp but there was still an uneasy feeling that she was being watched. She fought the urge to run, but when she needed it, it was already too late.

"Miss me?" a deep voice whispered in her ear. "I sure missed you."

There was no time to scream because he threw his hand over her mouth. Roughly, his large hand rubbed against her hip untucking her shirt thrusting itself below her belt line. She thrashed trying to free herself from his grip but he seemed to enjoy it more than anything.

"You looked real nice when you were swimming. You should swim for me sometime..."

She was thrown to the ground and he flipped her to her back before clamping his hand over her mouth again, but not before she was able to scream.

"Shut up!"

He tore her pants from her waist and snapped the buttons on her shirt when he forced it open. His beard scratched her chest as he kissed his way down her stomach to her waist line. His free had trailed it's way up her stomach to her chest and slid under her bra. She put her hands on his face and pressed her thumbs into his eye sockets. He slapped her so hard she was knocked along the ground.

Faster than he anticipated, she sprang up to her feet and began sprinting. "Somebody help!" she screamed running towards camp. "Help me!"

His footsteps thundered behind her as she ran, but they quickly overpowered her throwing her to the ground again. Tears filled her eyes as she grabbed the nearest thing and bashed it against his head. He slapped her again but made sure she didn't get away. Blood trickled down her face.

"You are mine!" He held a knife to her throat.

"I am nobody's!" she screamed at him. "Get off me!"

Every ounce of strength she had she used to free herself. If she died getting free, then at least she'd be free, but she was not going to let this man take her willingly. The knife wavered over her heart. In his eyes, she saw he was going to kill her. Right as he was going to throw his weight against the blade, a twang filled the air as an arrow sailed through his neck. Blood splattered all over her as she screamed. He gasped for air as blood fell from his mouth onto her chest and face. In one last attempt to kill her, he raised his hand and wrapped it around her throat squeezing as hard as he could.

She choked for air as he strangled her, but somewhere in the daze of choking she wrapped her hand around the arrow in his neck and pulled as hard as she could ripping it from his neck spurting blood everywhere.

How was he still alive?

Rapid footfalls approached and lifted him from her chest as two strong hands pulled her out from under him.

"Who was that?" Lily heard the voice but it didn't register in her mind.

"She's my property," her abuser spit at Rick.

Strong arms lifted her from the ground and carried her quickly away from the commotion.

Many faces passed by her as she was carried into the camp but none of them were familiar.

Daryl sprinted towards the RV with her in his arms and did not set her down because the walkers were all around them. If he put her down, there was no sure way to know if she would stay safe so he held her with one arm and killed walkers that got that close with the other.

He finally set her in the door of the RV. "Don't move!"

He then moved to the front of the formation around the RV killing walkers left and right. A walker slipped past him and came right for her.

She kicked it in the chest throwing it back for a moment but it was quickly returning. It's snarling teeth were barred and caught against the arrow she'd ripped from the neck of her attacker. She kicked it back again before using the arrow like a knife. Blood splattered against the side of the van as the walker slumped to the ground.

She retreated inside the RV and crouched down to wait out the remainder of the fight. Slowly the screaming and gunfire subsided giving way to wails of pain and confusion.

"Lily! I told you not to move!" Daryl shouted when he turned around and she was gone. "Where are you?" He leaped in the RV and found her in the back and his voice softened. "Come on. Give me the arrow." She handed over the arrow and he set it slowly on the table behind him. In his eyes she was a wounded animal and should be treated with care. "Don't move. I'll be right back." He returned with a set of his own clothes for her to change into. It was only at that time did she realize her shirt had been ripped open and her pants were completely gone.

"You better just change because I'm not leaving you alone." She realized that she'd just been sitting on the ground dazed. His belt buckle coming undone woke her from her daze. "That's what I thought. Come on." Sliding his hands under her arms, he pulled her to her feet. "So tell me..." He picked up the pants and promptly began to dress her. "Was that the first walker you've ever actually killed yourself?"

She nodded.

"You were rather quiet when doing so. Most girls scream or make some noise." He took off her shirt and dropped it to the floor before he prepared to slide his on her.

"Can we not talk about it?"

"Why not? They ain't gonna go away. Might as well-"

"Stop."

"What? You're interrupting me-"

"Just stop. Stop talking!" She hit him and he wrapped his arms around her tightly so she couldn't hit him or run away. To her it was obvious he used to rough house with his brother when they were younger so she was hardly an opponent. For all she knew they still rough housed from time to time.

"What the hell was that for?" His voice was rough but softened. He almost seemed to understand that she needed someone calm to talk to. "Don't hit me! Don't hit me."

"Just stop talking about killing, please. I just had a man die on top of me." She spoke from the crook of his neck.

"Technically he wasn't actually dead yet." She shook with agitation. "What's on your mind?" He asked slowly.

"So much death. There's so much death here."

"Was there none at home?"

"There's death everywhere...I thought it had stopped for a while. Then Rick handcuffed your brother to a roof and left him for dead. Shane kicked in Ed's face. You killed that man..."

"And you feel bad for all of that?"

"No," she sniffed. "Not all of it."

"I assume that was him?" he asked crossing his arms and taking a step back. He already knew the answer.

She nodded avoiding his eyes. "What happened to your brother anyway?"

He paused before letting her go and continuing. "You'll be staying with me again."

"He's dead?"

"No. He escaped. Cut off his own hand."

Her eyes closed as she forced herself to breathe. "I knew the world had gone to shit. I never knew how much so until I met you guys."

"The world HAS gone to shit, but we have to change to survive. Put your shirt on." He forced his shirt in her hands.

Why did it seem that whenever she was around Daryl her clothes were off? She hoped this wasn't going to become a regular occurrence.


	9. The Disputer

No sleeping took place that night. None at all. It was spent cleaning up what remained of the camp. Everyone was assigned different jobs. The Hispanic man and Glenn, Daryl, T-Dog, Shane, and Rick were all charged with removal of the bodies. Daryl wielded the pickaxe which ran through every dead body's head before it was burned. It never ceased to amaze Lily how much could be done to the dead but unless their brain was affected they still moved and they were still hungry.

When the sun rose, Andrea Still had not left Andrea's side. Sometime during everything that had happened Amy had been attacked. Lori kept Lily close to her while Daryl walked around partially because Carl had taken such a liking to her, but mostly to keep an eye on her. She was there when Shane and Rick were talking about what to do with Amy's body.

"We need to deal with it. Same as the others," Shane whispered.

"I'll tell her how it is," Rick said walking up to her to be the peace maker that he was. His peace trip ended up in retreat when Andrea pointed her gun at him.

"Y'all can't be serious? Lettin' that girl hamstring us. That dead girl's a time bomb."

"What so you suggest?" Rick asked Daryl.

Lily responded," Give her some more time."

"No. Take the shot. Straight in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from here."

"No, for gods sake. Let her be," Lori snapped.

"If you can take the shot then take it," Lily whispered harshly to Daryl. "If not, then give her time to mourn her sister because once Amy's in the ground she's never coming back up. It's just a little more inconvenience on your part before she's out of your hair."

"What was that all about?" Lori asked the two speechless men around her when Lily walked off.

It was after Lily walked off that Daryl left Andrea alone.

He moved over to help the Hispanic man move a dead body over to the flame and the pile of walkers.

"What are you doing?" Glenn asked them. "This is for geeks. Our people go over there."

"What's the difference? They're all infected," Daryl asked.

"Our people go in that row over there." Glenn had gotten angry at Daryl and had almost completely gone off on him. "We don't burn them! We bury them. Understand? Our people go in that row over there."

The two of them dragged the dead man over to the row of other dead survivors.

"You reap what you sow," Daryl shouted to Glenn.

"You know what? Shut up man!" The Hispanic man shouted at Daryl.

"Y'all left my brother for dead. You had this comin'."

"One man didn't cause all of this," Lily shouted to Daryl. The group stopped what they were doing to look up at her and Daryl had completely stopped in his tracks.

"What did you say?"

"You can't blame this on your brother's death. I don't blame getting raped on my sister's death. The world has taken a turn for the worst and that's what we have to live in now. That's the way the world works now. When someone we care about dies, we mourn and then we move on. If we don't, we die. It sucks but if we don't accept it, we'll end up like that too."

Daryl was at a complete loss for words. Little did the group know, but they wouldn't be hearing about Merle for a long time.

"Oh my God," she sighed realizing she'd said all of that out loud and that everyone had stopped to look at her. "I-I-What I-Oh..."

She recoiled from her statement and made for the woods.

Glenn came for her a few minutes later.

"Hey, you said what we all wanted to say. Come on back to the camp."

There was no point in hiding so she followed Glenn without a fight.

"That was easier than I expected. I had a whole speech planned out and everything."

"There's no point in hiding," she responded. "Were gonna leave anyway. Aren't we?"

"Yeah. But not just yet." When they walked back into camp, Daryl was wielding a pickaxe again.

"A walker got him. A walker bit Jim!" Jacqui shouted. A scuffle followed which ended with Jim in a headlock by T-Dog and Daryl showing us the bite. It was only a matter of time before he turned.

...

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it," Daryl stated.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asked him.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it."

"I hate to say it-I never thought I would-But maybe Daryl's right."

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog," Rick said.

"I'm not suggesting-"

"He's sick. He's a sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear. No tolerance for walkers, or them to be."

"What if we can get him help. I heard the CDC was working on a cure."

"I heard that too. Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell."

"What if the CDC is still up and running?"

"Man, that is a stretch right there."

"Why? If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the CDC at all costs wouldn't they? I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection-"

"Ok Rick, you want those things, all right? I do too, ok? Now if they exist, they're at the army base. Fort Benning."

"That's 100 miles the opposite direction," Lori interjected.

"That's right, but its away from the hot zone. Now listen to me. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there."

"The military were on the front lines of this thing. They got over run. We've all seen that. The CDC is our best choice and Jim's only chance."

"You go lookin' for aspirin, do what you need to do," Daryl said taking the pickaxe again. "Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!" Lily found herself standing between Jim and Daryl with a pickaxe pointed at her head.

"We don't kill the living," Rick said pointing a gun at Daryl's head. Lily looked at Rick with extreme interest considering what he was about to do.

The pick axe was lowered. "That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."

"He's not going to be a problem until he turns right?" she asked not dripping her guard at all.

"If he is, you know what I'll do." He dropped the pick axe to the ground and stormed off.

Something grabbed her arm.

"Thank you," Jim said to her. "Thank you very much."

She nodded to him before taking a deep breath and leaving him alone. Rick then proceeded to take him somewhere safe. In the next few hours Carl watched out for Lily. Carol sent the pickaxe through her husbands head ending him for sure. And Amy had turned into a walker.

When she saw it she moved Carl from her lap and jogged over to Daryl despite all they'd been through that day, before anyone else saw her begin to move.

"Daryl," she whispered quietly.

"What do you want from me?" he snapped.

She ignored his sour tone and continued with what she'd come to him for. "It's Amy. She's turned." He looked over her shoulder and saw she was right.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"I want you to know if things went south because you'd handle them."

"You'd trust my judgement over Shane or Rick's?"

"For this type of situation, yes. If Amy bit Andrea you wouldn't hesitate to shoot her in the head would you? You bragged about it all this morning."

The cocky smile on his face disappeared. He was beginning to see that she expected him to kill people whenever she said. He wasn't that kind of person was he? In his eyes she could see that he would now stop jumping to killing as a solution to every problem.


	10. The Burial

Lily belongs to my imagination as well as the changes. Please and thank you for sticking with me guys. It means a ton to me!

* * *

Daryl drove the truck up the hill to where Jim had been digging the day before. That's where the funerals were going to take place. That's where Lily knew she wasn't supposed to be. She would feel out of place but as she tried to leave a hand took hers.

"Are you not coming?" Sophia asked her.

"I don't know anyone up there."

"You know my father..."

"I did. Briefly."

"Please come."

There was no way on earth Lily could have refused the look Sophia gave her. Those tear filled eyes made her turn around and carry Sophia up the hill so she could say good bye to her father.

She walked into the conversation about who was in charge of the group and what the rules and she knew that she wouldn't participate. It wasn't for her to say.

"We need time to mourn and bury our dead. It's what we do."

The minutes dragged to a few hours as the dead were pulled into their respectful holes and a brief story was said about each. Lily had to leave before she completely lost it. Andrea was burying Amy and all it did was remind her of her sister and all she never got to do with her.

...

Daryl was packing up his things when Lily returned to him.

"Did you see Rick and Shane walk off together?"

"No. Why you care?" he asked without looking up.

"I'm just worried they might fight..."

"They do nothing but fight."

"I mean, like one will kill the other."

"Don't worry 'bout things that ought not be worried about," he responded standing up to meet her gaze.

"Let me help you," she said reaching down to help him fold the tent.

"You don't look like a country girl. How you learn about tents?"

"Dad used to take me camping with my sister. I forgot everything until I was hauled back out to the woods."

She was thankful he understood what she meant when she said that.

The tent was stored in the back of his truck along with his motor cycle.

"You have anything that needs storing?"

She looked away from him and shook her head.

"That's right." From the moment he found her to that moment now he realized she'd never even had time to collect anything. Everything that she'd had on her person had been ripped off, lost, or dirty.

"Here's something for you to pack." He held out a pocket knife and she took it. It was bigger than she expected and filled her whole palm.

"You open it by-"

She pulled the small tab on the side of the knife flicking it open.

"You know about knives now too?"

A small smile crossed her face. "I used to collect them." It was nice having something to protect herself with.

"A city girl who likes knives and camps. Doesn't sound like you'll be too bad off in this world."

"Can't hunt but I can grow food. Can't track either."

"When we settle down again I'll give you some lessons. You know...to keep yourself busy."

"You heard that?" she was referring to her conversation with Carl.

"Yeah. I hear everything." He couldn't hide his smile. "Heard Carl talking to his mom."

Shane and Rick gathered the group and explained the CB radios and to honk if anything else was needed and the caravan would stop. Before the caravan took off the Hispanic family left the group to meet up with more family they hoped would still be alive.

Good byes were shared and tears were shed before the leaving commenced.

"Honestly, I could use them now. To keep my mind busy on the drive," Lily referred to the tracking lessons Daryl had been talking about.

He sighed before crawling in the truck. "I'll explain it on the way over but it won't make a lick of sense."

"I don't mind." She closed the door behind her and the small caravan took off down the road.

Daryl started off slow talking about how to know you've found tracks in the dirt and progressed onto how you know what path the animal took depending on how a twig was broken or the dirt was smudged. We could tell that he didn't want to speak but it brought her comfort, so he found things to talk about. Lily didn't realize how tired she was until she'd fallen asleep on the window of the truck. She wondered how long it took him to realize she'd fallen asleep.

...

She woke as the group was helping Jim to the side of the highway. Rick set him on the ground by a tree.

"Wanna give him any last words?"

She shook her head no. "You?"

"I almost killed the guy. No." A minute later she was surprised to see him get out of the truck and approach Jim where they exchanged a few spare words before parting ways.


	11. The CDC

r2j591: lol Those lessons should come up in the second season and the way I picture them will be quite comical. Hopefully they'll come off that way. Looks like I will be learning how to track as well…Yikes!

Here's a short one for you guys.

Lily's mine and most everything else belongs to Scott G the man!

* * *

The grounds outside the CDC were probably the worst conditions Lily had seen yet. Corpses littered the ground everywhere one stepped. And the smell was enough to knock one off their feet, but they had to keep going. Through the stench, they made their way to the door. There walkers began to approach.

"You brought us into a graveyard!" Daryl snapped after shooting a walker.

"He made a call."

"It was the wrong damn call!"

"Just shut up. You hear me? Shut up. Shut up!" Rick snapped his attention between Daryl and Rick. "Think of the others here! Rick, this is a dead end."

Carol was worried sick. "Where are we gonna go?"

"Do you hear me? No blame."

Lori chimed in nervously. "She's right. We can't be here, this close to the city after dark."

All the voices ran together.

"Ain't no one here," Daryl snapped.

"Back to the road?" Lily asked.

"No," Rick shouted. "We came this far. We have to keep going! We have to keep trying! Hey!" He's turned his attention back to the door. Lily turned away from the sight of the group desperately pleading for the door to open and saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Fearing walkers, she turned and saw not a walker but a camera. A security camera. It moved again.

"Hey! The camera moved! Someone's in there!"

"That was just yo imagination," Daryl told her.

"I've seen a lot since the world went to hell and I've imagined several things, but I did not imagine that camera moving just now."

Rick began to throw himself against the door desperately and Daryl turned Lily away from the sight of it. Just as Shane began to drag him away, the door opened.

The door opened. Lily had been shocked it actually opened, but seeing the cleanliness of what lie beyond was more inviting than seeing a stranger in the woods. Everyone stood there wide eyed and slack jawed while she pushed past them walking into the CDC.


	12. The Doctor

Not Doctor Who even though he's awesome! Not that Doctor…sorry

Lily Sullivan belongs to Weezy815 (that's me :D) and the rest we can leave up to my few changes and S Gimple.

Boy, wouldn't the be embarrassing if I'd been getting his name wrong this whole time…Let me check...

Ok, so I know Scott is involved somewhere along the lines (he created 9 episodes) but the 'creator' of the show is Frank Darabont…(52 episodes)…

My bad...

* * *

With high expectations, the group followed behind Lily into the CDC making sure no walkers followed them. The building lobby was so clean, it hardly seemed real. How could it be?

"Hello?" a deep voice called from across the lobby. There was a man there holding a gun with a ragged look to him. His white shirt was untucked and clearly worn and it was apparent he hadn't shaved in days. "Anybody infected."

"One of our group was," Rick said. "He didn't make it."

"Why are you here? What do you want?"

"A chance."

"That's asking an awful lot these days."

Lily thought to herself that she'd gotten one. She only hoped that he would also give them one.

"I know."

The scruffy man took his time looking at the group of survivors, but when his eyes lingered on Lily too long, Daryl nonchalantly moved drawing the attention of the doctor before them.

"You all submit tot a blood test. That's the price of admission."

"We can do that."

"You got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed."

"Closed?" Lily asked Rick. "Do we plan on spending the rest of our lives here? What if we want to leave? We can't stay here!" He rushed right past her bringing some of the men with him to gather things before the doors closed.

Daryl. He'd listen. She chased him out the door and took his arm. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Daryl, those doors won't open again once we're moved in. We won't be able to leave. We'll be stuck in there." He shook her arm off him and made for his truck, but she trailed after him.

"We could die in there."

"Well, a'int you lookin' on the bright side of life. This is the first break we've had since the world turned. I'm not gonna miss it." He threw her a bag to carry in for him since she had nothing.

"Maybe you can live in a building underground trapped, but I can't."

"Then don't." He remembered at that moment where he'd found her. She'd been trapped in a cabin waiting for an unknown fate. "If we need to escape, I'll make sure you get out, but right now I'm hungry and he has food."

"Vi, seal the main entrance. Kill the power here," the doctor said when we ran back in the doors. Shutters covered the door sealing us in.

"Come on. You can do this."

"Rick Grimes," he introduced himself.

"Dr. Edwin Jenner."

The elevator ride was more than uncomfortable. All of them were crammed into a small space for a least a minute of silence but leave it to the hick to make conversation.

"Doctors always go around packing heat like that?" he asked handing Lily his own rifle.

"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself. But you look harmless enough. Except you." He looked down at Carl. "I'll have to keep my eye on you." Carl gave a smile.

"We underground?" Carol asked holding tightly to Sophia as we followed Dr. Jenner down the hall.

"You claustrophobic?"

"A little."

"Try not to think about it."

Daryl cast Lily a worried glance which she returned.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." The lights flickered to life showing rows of computers and a giant display screen in front of them. "Welcome to Zone 5."

"Where is everybody? The doctors and staff?"

"I'm it. It's just me here."

"What about that person you were speaking with? Vi?"

"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them welcome."

"Hello, guests. Welcome," a computer spoke to them.

"I'm all that's left."

...

"What's the point? If we're infected, we'd all be running a fever," Andrea said when Jenner was drawing her blood.

"I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here. Let me just at least be thorough. All done."

When she stood up, Jacqui came to help her because she wobbled.

"Whoa. Are you ok?"

"She hasn't eaten in days," Jacqui informed him. "None of us have."

"I have clean people at my dinner table."

...

"There's rooms and hot water, but use it sparingly. There's not much left."

"Did you hear that?" Glenn asked beside her.

"Yeah, hot water," she sighed.

Both of them smiled as they made for a room.

"Dinner in ten! We're not waiting for you!" Jenner shouted to Glenn and Lily as they darted to the showers.

Lily closed the door behind her faster than she'd meant to, but she hardly noticed as she was throwing her clothes to the ground and jumping in the shower.

The water was cold when she turned it on, but she gave a scream of delight knowing that it would warm. It was possible for her to shower before dinner was ready but she didn't care, she just wanted to feel the hot water.

The cover shirt was too warm after her shower so she just slipped Daryl's shirt back on and followed the jovial voices echoing down the hall. To her amazement glasses of wine were being passed around the table of smiling survivors. There was a drunken wave of welcome thrown at her when she entered the room.

"Man, you look like bran' new," T-Dog smiled at her. She gave a small smile in return. Only about half of the group had showered before dinner because they would do so after words.

"Warm shower's nice huh?" Glenn asked raising his glass to her. His words were already starting to slur together.

"I wanna try it," Carl said about the wine.

"Should he?" Lori asked. Rick handed Carl his glass.

The look which crossed his face was one of complete disgust which made the group laugh.

Lily walked over to the man that let them in and thanked him for opening the doors. Rick saw that and gave him a thank you speech which finished with people toasting to him.

"The kids done it, now it's your turn." Lily turned to find Daryl coming up behind her. He wasn't drunk yet but we was well on his way. His arm was heavy on her shoulders.

"I don't drink," she said trying to push him off. "Not often."

"I'll tell ya what. Here take this and drink when you want." He placed his glass in her hands before going to get himself another one.

"Daryl?" Glenn asked sounding as if he'd had a few glasses himself. "Why are you so nice to her and not everyone else?"

"Cause maybe she's nicer to me than you lot," he retorted grabbing the bottle. "She's also been trough a hell that none y'all understand."

"And you do?" Lori asked. He just glared at her taking a swig from the bottle.

Glenn made to put his bottle down when Daryl saw this. "Not you, little man. I wanna see how red your face gets."

After the laughter died down, Shane asked a question. "When are you gonna tell u what happened here doc?" Silence filled the room as he continued to speak. "All the-the other doctors. They were supposed to be figuring out what happened. Where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane," Rick tried to stop him. "Don't need to do this now."

"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here right?"

"This was your move-supposed to find all the answers. Instead we-we found him. We found one man. Why?"

The whole time Shane had been talking, Jenner knew it was going to come around to him so he finally began to talk. "Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off the be with their families. Then when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted."

"Every last one?"

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They...opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

"You didn't leave," Andrea said. "Why?"

"I just kept working. Hoping to do some good."

"Dude, you are such a buzzkill," Glenn directed at Shane.

The drinking picked back up after Rick, Shane, and Jenner retreated to their rooms for the night.


	13. The Promise

r2j591: These next two chapters are for you. I might not be able to post much for a few days so I figured I'd give you two bonus chapters. The next chapter will conclude all I have for season one.

This chapter is not named after the song The Promise, but that is a good song.

Lily is mine and the rest belongs to whoever on earth made the Walking Dead.

* * *

Many glasses of wine later, Lily helped everyone back to their rooms but when she was heading back to her room someone took her arm causing her to jump.

"I gotta tell you somethin'." It was Daryl.

"What is it?"

"Come in my room."

She followed the man into his room making sure he didn't fall and hurt himself. She should have been more concerned about what he was going to do but he'd done nothing to make her think other wise. He pushed her to the bed and she immediately sat upright ready to run but instead of sitting on the bed he sat on the floor.

"Five years ago, my girlfriend was walkin' home from a late night meeting. I agreed ta meet her and when we linked up, three men were trailin' her a block back. I thought that by bein' there they would go away, but they didn't. We tried takin' a short cut home to out smart 'em but that didn't work. That's when they jumped us. Two of them grabbed me and made me watch as the third raped my girlfriend." He sighed before continuing. "Each of them took turns attackin' us. By the time they were done she was unconscious and I had three broken ribs. I carried 'er to the hospital. The damage report was broken ribs, bruised guts, bruising just about everywhere else. I also left with this." He'd lifted his shirt to reveal a scar that ran down his side and disappeared below his pant line. "My brother Merle stopped by and brought us clothes. I had moved over to her room to be beside her and was dressing when it happened. The belt buckle on my pants startled her. She woke up shoutin', the doctors had ta come in and medicate her because she'd just scream. Days later she'd gotten no better. She was off her medication but she refused to do anything. A few more days later she died. Not because of her physical injuries but because of her psychological scaring. She'd stopped doin' everything and eventually her body allowed her to quit."

That explains how he knew what had happened to her. He'd seen the effects of it up close.

"What was her name?" He hadn't opened his eyes once during the tale, but they opened to answer her question.

He chuckled. "Petunia." His drunken serious face returned as he set his wine bottle aside and crawled over to her on the bed.

"I need you to do something for me." Ever so slightly, he inched even closer to her taking the back of her neck in his hands. Her heart rate increased fearing the worst and she held up her hands to keep him away should he make a move. "Don't give up. He's dead now."

"There was another..." Her words were hard to string together but he could hardly tell the difference.

"Yeah, there may be. But I'll deal with him too. In any way I can. But you are safe now."

"He could have killed some of you..." It was all she could do to not cry. Not in front of Daryl.

"But he didn't damnit! He didn't. He almost killed YOU." Daryl took her face in his hands and forced her to meet his eyes. "Don't stop fightin'. He's gone now. You can move on with your life, so do it. Promise me that. I kept my word. Now it's your turn to keep yours." He gave her a shake before pressing his forehead to hers. "Don't give up. I saw the way you stood up to him. He was three times your size. You have no excuse to stop fighting now. Don't give up." She was waiting for him to continue but soft snores reached her ears. From there she pulled him into bed and covered him a best she could before retreating to her own room. Before she closed his door she gave him her promise.


	14. The Escape

Longest chapter so far.

Lily Sullivan and so are the episode edits. Everything belongs to Frank D.

* * *

"Where were you this morning?" Carol asked when Lily entered the room.

"Asleep. Some of you had a hard time finding your rooms on your own last night so I had to help. Hey, didn't one of you actually come in my room last night and throw up in the toilet?"

"That would be him," T-Dog smiled pointing at Glenn who was moaning as he leaned over a bowl of cereal.

"You should be drinking water," she told Glenn as she set a glass of it before him.

"She's nice to everyone, Daryl," Carl said to him when he entered the room referring to the comments made last night about Daryl's personality change toward Lily.

"Yeah, whatever." She pushed her glass of water over in front of Daryl when he sat because he might have hid his hungover well, but she could still tell.

She had just sat down to eat when the group was following Jenner into the main control room. Taking her plate of eggs and bacon with her she followed them into the other room.

"Vi, show it TS-19 please."

"Playback of TS-19."

On the giant screen scans were projected to show us what he wanted.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few."

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked when the picture fully developed.

"An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for EIV."

"Enhanced Internal View."

The brain had lit up and balls of light were shooting all around the neurons in the brain. "What are those lights?" Shane asked.

"It's a person's life," Jenner responded. "Experience, Memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, in all those ripples of light, is you-The thing that makes you unique and human."

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked.

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

"Death? That's what it is, a vigil?" Rick asked.

"Yes, or rather the playback of a vigil."

Andrea wanted to know if the person had died.

"Yes. Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected...and volunteered to have us record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."

The brain on the screen now was not blue like it had been but a fading blue with what looked like tree roots of red branching out from the neck.

"What is that?" Glenn exclaimed.

"It invaded the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be...gone."

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked her mother.

"Yes."

Jenner looked over at Andrea who had been holding back tears.

"She just lost somebody two days ago," Lori told him. "Her sister."

"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is. Scan to the second event. The resurection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."

The brain on the screen was full of those black roots which now shot red synapses instead of blue. Nothing like it was before.

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.

"No, just the brain stem. Basically it get them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick asked.

"You tell me."

"It's nothing like before. Most of the brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part doesn't some back. The you part. Just a shell, riven my mindless instinct."

Lily saw a solid white mass move into the top of the screen, but she could not turn away fast enough before the bullet passed through the test subjects brain.

"God. What was that?" Carol asked.

"He shot his patient in the head," Andrea told her. She would know better than the rest of them because she'd done it to her own sister.

"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."

"You have no idea what it is, do you?"

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui questioned.

"There is that."

"Somebody must know something." Andrea approached Jenner. "Somebody somewhere."

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol asked.

"There may be. People like me."

"But you don't know? How can you not know?"

"Everything went down. Communications, directives- all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."

"There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing?" Andrea asked. "That;s what you're really saying right?"

"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again," Daryl commented rubbing his face.

Lily chuckled at his comment.

"What's so funny?"

"You're a funny drunk."

"Dr. Jenner," Dale asked before Daryl could scold her. "I know this has been taxing and I hate to ask one more question, but... that clock has been counting down. What happens as zero?"

"The basement generators-they run out of fuel." Jenner walked off.

"Then what?" Rick asked. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur."

Everyone went back to their rooms with the exception of the men who ran throughout the facility trying to find more fuel.

The air stopped in Lily's room and she knew the worst was coming. She slipped out of her room and into Daryl's without being seen.

"How you know which room was mine?" he asked looking at her with curiosity.

"You brought me in here last night." He raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Is your air off too?"

"Yeah, why?" She sighed roughly. "This is what you were talking about isn't it?" The fear behind her eyes was more than enough response.

Jenner could be heard walking by in the hall on the other side of the door. Daryl took her hand leading her out to the hall quickly.

"Doc. What's goin' on here?"

"The wing is shutting itself down."

"What do you mean shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Jenner what's happening?" Rick asked him when his group rejoined the others.

"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. That started a we approached the last half hour mark." The group followed him until he reached the computers. "It was eh French."

"What?" Andrea asked.

"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs to the end. They thought they were close to a solution."

Jacqui piped up. "What happened?"

"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"

Lily sank to the ground when the half hour alarm started blaring.

"30 minutes to decontamination," Vi announced. Lily threw her hands to her ears.

Rick shouted for everyone to go get their things because they were going to break out. They turned around to go get their things before escaping the CDC. Shouting ensued and doors closed sealing them in.

"I can't die like this," Lily whispered curling herself into a ball. "I've seen too much. Been through too much to die like this."

"What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick asked loudly.

"H.I.T.s. High-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist of a two stage aerosol ignition the produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."

"The air will catch on fire."

"We have to leave!"

"That door was designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner told Daryl as he threw his axe against it.

"Well your head ain't!" He charged Jenner with the axe in his hands. Dale, Rick, and Lily threw themselves in between him and Jenner. The head of the axe came down upon Lily's arm slicing it open.

The door opened and everyone ran towards it.

She remained stationary trying to tie a knot over the wound.

"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol cried.

"Come on!" Daryl shouted.

Jacqui turned back to join Jenner and gave Lily a look which said I wouldn't blame you if you joined me. Lily'd been through quite a bit but never considered killing herself and was insulted someone would think that was the only way out. The door was opened. Despite the counting down of the clock, Lily began to walk over to her to tell her suicide was not the way when she was lifted from the ground. The sleeveless shirt could only belong to one person.

"Put me down!"

Daryl followed Rick to the entrance where he placed Lily on her feet. Immediately, she hit him.

"What was that for?"

He shook her in response instead of hitting her. "I told you I hate being hit! Don't ever do that again!"

"Why did you pick me up? I didn't ask to be pulled out of here!"

"Glenn! Hold onto her!" Daryl shouted forcing Lily to her knees and wrapping her arms around her for Glenn to grab. Glenn did as ordered and held onto her as Daryl ran forward to break the windows so they could escape.

"Get down!" Rick shouted throwing a grenade at the window. Daryl ran back and threw her and Glenn to the ground to shield them from the shattering window.

"Why you son of-"

"Go on, say it! I dare ya to say it!"

The window burst into a million pieces.

"You stupid hick!"

"Don't you ever call me that! Ya hear?"

"Then what will you do about it?"

"Come on, Daryl!" Glenn shouted urgently. With an angry grunt, Daryl picked up the fighting Lily again and ran outside diving behind a sand bag wall and pinning her down. She fought with all her strength to get up but he was just too strong for her.

"Get off me," she sighed on the verge of tears.

"Cry then. But I'm not letting you kill yourself."

"You thought I was trying to kill myself?"

There was a pause. "Weren't ya?"

"NO!"

The building exploded as the two wrapped themselves around the other.

Lily remained curled on the ground after the blinding flash of light and the deafening explosion with her hands over her ears. Daryl reached a hand down to help her up but she ignored it and got up on her own. The heat of the explosion finally drew Lily's attention. When the sight of the burning building reached her eyes she was forced to look away.

"How could you think I could let myself die like that?"

"It was a way out that didn't require being shot or being eaten. Options are minimal these days."

"I gave you my promise! I gave you my promise. Now you have to let me prove it to you. You have to trust me." Lily then walked off to take her seat in the truck. Before she reached the truck she found herself against the ground.

**END SEASON 1**


	15. The Umbrella

Alrighty, the few of you who are actually reading this let me say thank you very much. It means a lot that you are taking the time to read my fanfiction and reviews are always welcome. And a big thank you goes out to r2j591 who has been giving me that motivation to keep writing. You have been the only one reviewing but for me having one person who is legitimately interested in reading is enough to keep writing so thank you from the depths of my heart!

Welcome to Season 2. These chapters might take a little bit longer to get posted because I haven't seen the episodes as many times and because I will be on the road quite a bit for the next two weeks so I will post when I can.

Oh, and random but somewhat relevant note. You know how characters have that thing they always do like they cry a lot or have a certain catch phrase? Well, Lily's thing always tends to get hurt and I'm trying to tone it down but suggestions for more ways to get hurt during an apocalypse (because getting hurt is her thing) are welcome. As are suggestions for anything else.

Also I will be vacationing on and off for the next two weeks so posting will not be as frequent but I shall try.

Lily Sullivan is my OC. The edits to the episodes I also claim, but I guess everything else belongs to that Frank guy I looked up earlier...

So without further ado, I present season 2.

* * *

Her bed wouldn't stop moving. Up and down. Left and right. When she lifted her arm to her head it throbbed with pain. Opening her eyes, she saw it bandaged. Lifting the bandages she saw the open would from the axe. It needed to be sewn shut. She pushed herself to a sitting position and saw the was in the back of Carol's Cherokee, but there was no Carol. Rick, Lori and Carl were in the front two seats. Carl was looking at her. He gave her a small smile.

"You look awful," he said. Lori tried to get him to stop what he was saying but she knew it was worthless. Lily figured she must have been extremely pale and most likely a little sweaty. No wonder she was looking bad.

She laughed so hard she thought she'd pass out again.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"On the interstate," Rick responded.

Without asking, Carl crawled out of his mom's lap and over into the back seat with Lily holding her arm in his lap.

"You can look if you want, bud." Lily hardly cared anymore these days. Little boys were all about blood and guts but that was virtual stuff. She wasn't sure how he would handle the real deal.

As far as injuries went it really wasn't that bad. It just bled all over her shirt and most likely Daryl's as well.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, it does. But you know what will hurt more when I have to sew it up."

"You have to sew that up?" he asked borderline between disgusted and completely intrigued.

"Yeah, I need a sewing kit."

"Are you absolutely sure?" Lori and Rick asked at the same time.

To show them she was sure Lily unwrapped her arm and thrust it between the two front seats. Lori recoiled from the sight of it and Rick turned his eyes back to the RV in front of him which had stopped driving. He slammed on the breaks and Lily stopped her fall forward by using her bad arm causing it to bleed. Quickly she threw the bandage over it before blood could drop in the car.

They all filed out and found that the radiator hose had broken in the RV once again and they're have to replace it.

"Hey, Carol," Lily asked running up to the truck which followed them. Upon closer inspection, she saw it was Daryl's truck she'd been driving. He must be using his motor cycle. "Do you have a small sewing kit."

She rummaged through her purse before going through the trunk of her car and pulling out a small sewing kit. "Will that help?"

"Yes, it will. Thanks."

"Do you feel better?"

"Yeah, still light headed. It should help my arm though."

When Lily walked over to where the group was gathered around the RV, she heard them arguing about what to do now that they were stuck. There was no point for her to look because she knew Carl wanted to watch her preform surgery and she knew he'd be right behind her. They took the closest car hood and set up supplies.

"You need to properly clean the needle before using it," she told him.

"Is yours clean?"

"No. It's a clean as I can get it. Now pick a color for me, Carl." He chose a bright blue color for the stitches.

"Will it hurt?"

"Yes, but by the way you mom and dad look over you, you don't need to worry about getting hurt or having to get stitches."

"You watch over me too."

"Yes, I do." She rubbed his hair making him smile. She threaded the needle before beginning to sew. "You ready?"

"Yeah," he sighed.

The needle pierced the flesh of her arm sending a pain signal straight to her brain. She was more than aware of the pain but because she knew what she was doing she was able to force herself to remain calm. If anybody else had sewn up her arm, she would be uncomfortable and would most likely cry and that's if she didn't punch the person first. For being a doctor, she was really squeamish around other people with needles. The world changing had made her less squeamish though.

For the next fifteen minutes she proceeded to show Carl how to stitch up a wound and was surprised how well he kept himself composed considering the few boys she knew were squeamish around scars. He was well on his way to surviving the walker take over. When she was done, she flicked open her knife and cut the string.

"That's it?" Carl asked.

"Yeah, for now. It should be cleaned and wrapped but I will get to that later. Hey, if I wasn't so squeamish around other people with needles, I'd have let you give it a try. Your mom would probably give me nothing but a hard time. Maybe some other day."

Daryl walked up to them with his arms crossed. "You, uh...you feel ok?" It was obvious he felt bad at what happened, but she didn't blame him. He wanted to get out as badly as she did, just a little bit more.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just hungry."

"Sorry about..." he gestured toward her arm then began to chew on his fingernail.

"Give me something to wrap it with and some food and we can call ourselves even. How does that sound?"

"Gather what you can find. Spare parts, food, medical supplies..." Rick said and she could tell that medical supplies were directed at her. It was just another careless mistake that needed to be tended to.

"I'll get something for that arm. There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find in these cars."

Carl remained close to Lily's side holding onto her good arm while they began to look through the cars for anything useful. Not much was found in the first car other than an umbrella. She laughed at it and made to walk away, but turned back taking it in her hands. It wasn't one of those small fold up umbrellas but one of those large straight ones that does not bend in half. With pride she gripped it.

"What do we need an umbrella for?" Carl asked her.

"I'm gonna use it to kill walkers." The raised eye brow she got was incentive for her to continue. She crouched down to his level. "Look it is this way. It's pretty solid until something heavy falls on it. And it's sharp at the end. You don't even have to get close to the beast to kill it. Nice, no?"

"Whatever you say," he laughed pulling a suitcase from the trunk of the car.

She lugged it over to the RV for anyone to go through. It was better to have too much of something than not enough, but she did rip a shirt to threads and teach Carl how to properly tie it over a wound.

"Carl, baby!" Lori called.

"I'm right here, mom."

"He's with me, Lori." It was evident that Lori was not thoroughly pleased with what Lily had taught him, but at least he wasn't off on his own and the skills would be useful later. She was mad Lily hadn't asked first.

"Come on, babe." Carl ran to his mother's side.

"Thanks for all the help, bud!" Lily called as he ran off to his mother.

Lily pushed herself back to her feet and walked around the side of the RV out of sight of the Grimes family before viciously attacking the cloth around her arm.

"What's wrong?" It was Glenn.

She sighed with relief when she saw it was Glenn and not Carl asking her what she was up to. Lily had never considered having kids of her own. mostly because she'd never found the right guy, but after the dead rose to inhabit the earth, a baby was one of the last things she'd ever consider having. But despite her not wanting kids, it would have broken her heart if Carl saw her undoing what he'd just done. She wanted him to feel accomplished in what he'd done, after all he was only a kid and his knot tying skills would get better with time.

"He tied it too tight..." she said motioning to the arm he'd just wrapped with her help. "It's not that I don't appreciate what he did, but if I don't loosen it, I will lose all the feeling in my hand. The problem is, I can't seem to get the knots undone." Using her teeth and free hand, she tried undoing the knots.

"Hey, there's no need to explain. It's ok. Give it here." She held out her arm graciously to Glenn who laughed and untied the knots, loosened the bandages, and then retied them.

"Thanks."

"No, thank you. For standing up to Daryl like that. No one's had the courage to do so and it was only a matter of time before someone lost it and exploded on him or worse. Sadly, you had to shed blood to get him to stop and think."

"It's all good. I'm up and walking." She made to go through more cars taking her umbrella with her.

"Hey, Lily. What did you do before all of this?"

She gave a light chuckle before answering him. She rested the umbrella against her shoulder. "I was a doctor..."


	16. The Amber Alert

Guest: Thanks for tuning in. There's more in store for Lily and the group along the way.

r2j591: I actually thought I had posted this chapter which is why you mentioned tripping, but what made your comment make me smile so much was that she does trip a lot...

I hate to say this guys but this might be the last post I make for a week due to vacation and stuff.

Lily is mine and the episode changes, Frank gets credit for everything else.

* * *

Shane and Glenn were laughing hysterically about something which made Lily turn to look at them. Shane was standing under the flow of water which came from one of those giant water bottles commonly found in business offices. At least the group found something they needed.

She moved down the cars finding a sweatshirt she could use later and a few food items which she took to the RV, but not before eating some herself. On her walk back to where she'd just been, she passed something she hadn't noticed before. It was a body. It was old and smelled bad and flies were still hanging around it which was more than her light headedness could handle so she moved on.

The next car was no better. Baby items were strewn around the road before she even got to the car. Children were killed during all of this. She knew it happened but actually seeing the evidence of it up close was overwhelming.

After searching through the next car and finding nothing, Lily sat down on the hood to take a breather. Her arm throbbed and had begun to bleed again, but no matter how hard she tried to ignore the pain, it just wouldn't go away.

"Eat."

"Short, sweet, and to the point," Lily responded to Daryl's request. It was an energy bar or something he handed to her and he brought a pink vitamin water he'd found.

"Look, I feel bad about almost killing ya, so just shut up and eat already so I know you won't pass out."

She ripped a chunk out of the bar with her teeth and washed it down with the vitamin water. It was nice having food.

Lily caught him staring at her arm which was already bleeding through the shirt Carl tied over it.

"It doesn't hurt that bad..." she lied taking another bite. His attention turned to the car ahead of them.

"Don't lie to me," he said sternly. "You can't even lift anything heavy with it. How bad does it hurt?"

"Enough that chopping it off might not sound so bad..." She pushed herself up and continued forward holding her umbrella in one hand and the bar in the other. As she continued forward, she noticed that all chatter from the others had ceased.

Turning she saw they were all completely gone.

"Go," Daryl hissed pushing her forward.

The walkers were coming. Lily sprinted farther down the row of cars crouching behind one of them to find T-Dog and Daryl slid around a truck stabbing a walker in the head before dragging the weak T-Dog on the ground throwing the walker over him. He grabbed Lily and laid her on the ground before dragging a walker over the two of them. His face was less than an inch from hers. In her eyes he saw memories began to surface of being locked in the cabin and the men who raped her. Their lives depended on whether she could keep herself together or not.

If she closed her eyes she would really think that she was in the cabin again so all she could do was lock her eyes on his. To keep sounds from emitting her throat, she covered her mouth and held her breath.

His light blue eyes were locked with her green and blue ones. Lily had never been one to make long eye contact but if it was broken now, she might lose it.

He reached his hand to cover her mouth in case she did give out a cry, but thought better of it and set it next to her head. He figured it might have made things worse rather than better. Daryl dipped his head down next to hers brushing his stubbly cheek against her face and found a way to lift his body up. There was no need for him to tell her that their lives depended on her silence because she was well aware of it.

Feet shuffled by the three of them on the ground. No one breathed. They were too afraid to blink for fear the walkers would hear them.

Minutes felt like hours as the walkers stumbled by one after another. Their numbers died down eventually. The second the coast was clear, Daryl immediately tossed the walker from them and crawled away from her only to find that she'd been clutching to his vest with a stone like grip. He then tore the walker from T-Dog and pulled him to an upright position. She was breathing heavily when he crouched next to her.

"You ok?"

She nodded her head keeping her eyes closed and her hands over her face. Daryl pulled her to her feet.

Sophia screamed. Hearing the scream pulled Lily out of her daze. Sophia screamed again. Lily jumped into action grabbing the umbrella she'd dropped and began to run after her.

"Hey! Over here!" Lily shouted only loud enough for the walkers chasing Sophia to hear. They kept following her. "Over here!" Slowly their heads cocked to the side as they heard her and saw her open the large umbrella which she quickly closed. They began to chase her. Crap. She hadn't thought that far ahead. Turning to the woods, she ran away from where Sophia had gone and was egging the walkers to follow her. "Come on! Come and get me!"

The woods passed by quickly as she ran but suddenly, the ground was gone and she fell into a small stream. The bank was muddy as she scrambled up it.

Mindlessly, the walkers followed her trail and fell into the water too but they got stuck.

Deep breaths of air filled her lungs as she wielded the umbrella. With more force that she thought she could muster, the umbrella collided with the first walkers head throwing it to the river. The end of it passed through the eye socket of the second walker.

Blood dripped down her hands and face when she started running to her left following the stream. If Sophia had kept running, then she would be down stream.

Stopping to breathe, she glanced down at the water and saw the blood. Vigorously she scrubbed it away with a rock. A nervous shriek reached her ears from across the stream. She looked up to find Sophia looking at her.

"Sophia, it's just me."

"Lily?"

She nodded holding her arms out. "Come on. It's safe. I got them."

Sophia jumped into Lily's wet arms and she hugged her tightly.

Proceeding with caution, Lily carried Sophia through the trees toward the highway. Others from the group were running around looking for them.

"Over here!" she shouted.

Footsteps approached but they didn't belong to Rick or Daryl or Shane. It was another walker.

"Sophia stay behind me!" Lily threw her umbrella at the walkers head, knocking him to the ground. Once there she turned around to find Sophia had run off.

"Sophia!"

The walker stood back up coming right at her.

She tried to run away but a tree root caught her foot and she crashed to the ground. Pain shot through her ankle as she tried to stand.

The walker came down but she rolled out of the way before it crushed her. In one final move, she jumped to her feet and stabbed it through the eye.

"Sophia! Sophi-"

A hand over her mouth made her jump as she was pulled into a bush. The other hand grabbed her legs and pulled them into the bush with them.

She froze and was glad she did because another walker stumbled past. Rick ran in behind it and stabbed it through the eye.

"What the hell kind of stunt was that you pulled back there? Ya coulda got yourself killed."

"Where's Sophia?" Lily asked trying to get to her feet using the umbrella.

"Shane, get her back to the RV," Rick ordered. "Daryl, you come with me."

"Come on Wonder Woman," Shane scoffed carrying Lily. "You could have got yourself killed."

"Sophia was in trouble and no one else was running to her rescue. Put me down! We have to get her. You don't even know where she went!"

"You've got a point. Get on my back and hold on."

Shane took off on a brisk jog in the direction of the others.

"Her foot prints end here..." Daryl said.

"Because that's where she was standing when I picked her up," Lily added.

"Why are you back here?" Daryl snapped.

"You can just ask me what happened. Wait where is she? There's no way she could have gotten that far."

"She came this way and must have jumped in the water," Rick suggested.

"Tracks are gone. They end here."

"Sophia!" Shane shouted dropping Lily to the ground where she stumbled before catching her balance on a tree.

"She'll be tuckered out hiding in a bush somewhere most likely," Shane said. Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Shane began to follow Sophia's trail forcing Lily to hop along behind them due to Shane forgetting her. When she caught up to them, Daryl was crouched looking at something She couldn't see.

"Shane and Glenn go back to the highway. People are gonna start panicking. Let them know we're on her trail doing everything we can. But most of all, keep every body calm."

"The only way to keep people calm is to keep them busy. Now I'll keep them busy, you just gotta get me there."

"Shane, would you?" Rick asked gesturing towards Lily.

"I got her," Glenn said scooping her in his arms. "Lighter than expected."

"Hear that?" she asked. "Glenn says I'm light so there's no excuse for you if you drop me." They managed a small chuckle, but it was gone quickly.

"Maybe that's why Daryl carries you so much," Glenn said only loud enough for her to hear.

"I don't know why he does so, so often. Last time was because he thought I was gonna kill myself and that was his way of talking me out of it."

"You were gonna stay?"

"No, I wasn't. He thought I was."


	17. The Question

cemmia: Thank you!

Ok back from vacation for a few days before I get shipped across country again to drive furniture home...

Lily belongs to me and the slight rearranging that I do everything else belongs to the Walking Dead people...

* * *

"Did you find her?" Carol asked her when she and Glenn approached the camp.

"Yes, I did, but she got scared and ran off again. I shouted for her but the walkers closed in on me and Daryl saved my back. He and Rick and Shane are out looking for her now.

"Nope, just Rick and Daryl," Shane said from behind them once he joined the group causing Lily to jump.

"What happened?" Lori asked Lily when Glenn set her on the hood of a car.

"I tripped over a tree root when I turned to go after Sophia and a walker was coming after me. It'll be fine but I need to stay off of it for a little while. In the meantime, Rick told me to tell you guys that he wants you to continue to rifle through these cars. He want's to make sure that we get everything we can out of these cars before he brings Sophia back. Once he does that, he says we can leave."

Glenn and Shane both knew that she had embellished but they knew Rick wanted to keep the others busy so they didn't argue.

The group set back to work gathering what they needed. That is all of them except Carol who was waiting for the return of Rick and Daryl with her daughter.

Lily, who had been forced to the RV, was in not the best mood but there was nothing she could do other than wait and read. The sun was going down and Lily wanted to be outside to watch the sunset, so she took her book outside and crawled on a car hood.

Daryl and Rick came back when the sun set, but there was no news to report other than they gutted a walker.

"What are you doin' balancin' on a car hood?" Daryl snapped at her.

"Watching the sun go down..." Lily responded sheepishly.

"Why?"

Her voice came back. "Because there are few things which a person can enjoy these days and a sunset is one of those things."

"Get back in the RV."

"Why?"

"Because you're injured and being out here during the night is like an invitation to fall again. Come on." He offered her his hand. "Time to call it a day."

"I can take care of myself."

His eyes were stern. "You don't need ta be gettin' hurt again..."

"You've had a long day," Rick said trying to bring the peace between the two. "Daryl's right. If you try to move on your own, you could trip again and hurt your ankle more."

"Fine," she responded sliding off the hood onto her good foot. Daryl pulled her arm over his shoulder and helped her to the RV where he set her down on one of the benches.

"Don't move."

When he left Andrea sat opposite of her and began to clean her gun.

"So, you and Daryl..." she started trying to make conversation.

"What about us?" Lily responded somewhat quickly.

"You have a thing for him?"

"He's bossy and doesn't respect my personal space..."

"No, I'm talking about what just happened out there...You two were bickering like an old married couple."

"He's worried about me, that's all."

"That's all? That's certainly saying something alright!"

"What does that mean?"

"He doesn't worry about anybody but himself. Why does he look out for you?" She'd set her gun down on the table giving Lily her undivided attention.

She sighed before giving in to Andrea. "Back at the CDC he told me something that happened to him a few years ago." Andrea looked up at her with interest. No one in the group had been particularly close to Daryl or Merle so anything about their past was something worth hearing about. By the look Andrea was giving her, Lily knew that it wasn't right to tell her what had happened to Daryl. If he ever wanted to say it, he would, but until then, she wasn't going to say anything. "Let's just say I remind him of someone he used to know and he doesn't want the same thing happening to me that happened to them. That's why he's keeping such a close watch on me. He also feels terrible about my arm, so he's trying to make up for that in his own way I suspect. That's all there is to tell."

Andrea looked somewhat disappointed at what had been said but she didn't press the matter and let Lily drift off to sleep.


	18. The Slip

Thanks for the reviews guys. I'd post more if I had it but I'm posting as I write it. Not something I'd like to do but I need to keep cranking this out or I will stop...

Lily is mine and everything else belongs to Frank.

* * *

The next morning most of the entire group went out to search for Sophia while Dale, T-Dog, and Lily stayed behind to hold down the fort.

Most of nothing happened all day with the exception of T-Dog talking about being the weakest link along with Dale and herself. Dale couldn't have told T-Dog he was wrong any better than she could have.

Through the persuasion of Dale, Lily moved outside to read her book. Upon stepping out the door, a faint gunshot echoed through the trees.

"You heard that, right?" she asked Dale.

"Yeah..."

"Gunshot." She tapped her good foot against the hood or a car until the group returned, but before they came back, screams filled the air.

"What was that gunshot?" Lily asked the group. Rick Carl and Shane were not with the group. They'd branched off on their own to search a little longer.

"Was that you screaming?" Dale asked Andrea.

"Some girl comes riding in like Zoro on a horse and took Lori away saying that Carl had been shot," Glenn told her.

"Shot?"

"Their farm is two miles back down the highway. We need to circle back around to get there."

It was decided that Glenn and T-Dog would go to the farm. Andrea, Daryl, Dale, Carol, and Lily were going to stay with the RV.

"Why didn't you go to the farm?" Dale asked her.

"I took care of my injuries."

"Could you help T-Dog?"

"Judging from what I heard earlier today, there's nothing I could do without the proper tools."

"Proper tools?" he asked inquisitively. "What do you mean? I've got first aid supplies in the RV..."

"Dale, he's beyond my help. We need medicine. Not bandages."

"How do you know?"

"I'm a doctor."

"And you didn't think it was important for us to know that?"

"No one asked!" she snapped. "There have been some other more pressing matters on my mind lately!"

He held up his hands in and apologetic manner. "I'm-I'm sorry. It's just if we could have had your help earlier, T-Dog might be in better shape."

"My injury was from a smooth surface, T-Dog's was from a jagged piece of metal...If we washed it...I don't know. Frankly, I don't want to look at it because I will think of all the things I need and don't have, get stressed, and mess up. I'm afraid of intervening. If I do, it might kill him."

The look in Dale's eyes said he understood what she was thinking but was disappointed she wouldn't try.

"Carl is also at the farm. Don't you want to be with him."

"Dale, you know I love that boy, but he needs his family, not some stray human Daryl found on the side of the road. If I was there, I'd want to be helping Carl, I'd want to be doing something. I don't know if he's ok... He might be dead already for all I know. I just need to stay away from him for as long as I can."

"Why are you avoiding everybody that's hurt?"

"Because if they die, I will have that guilt on my shoulders! That's why I am afraid to help anybody."

...

That night, Lily slept on the bench at the table again. The five of them made their way into the RV to settle down for the night. Andrea was working on her gun some more. Carol was sobbing in the back and Daryl was in the aisle.

Her feet were dangling off the end right over Daryl's head. Sleep hit her hard and she woke to find herself sliding out of the bench with her feet ready to kick Daryl in the face.

She threw her feet up to stop her from falling and her feet caught on the cabinets under the sink with a resounding thud. His head snapped up at the sound and a sharp pain shot through her ankle. She slumped to the ground right where he'd been sleeping and doubled over in pain.

"Son of a bitch," she hissed through her teeth at the pain in her ankle. What was really upsetting was the pain had gone away before she went to sleep.

"Let me see it," Daryl offered crawling over to her, but she held up her hand stopping him. If her ankle had made her cuss then he only assumed that it had to hurt.

"I can deal with it."

"No, it could be broken or sprained-"

"It's just twisted."

"How do you know? Let me see."

"No. Don't touch it!"

He moved closer. "Just lift your pant leg..."

"I said no!"

"Damn it, Lily! Why won't you let me look at your foot?"

"Because I'm a doctor. I can take care of this myself."

He breathed before responding. Many things had crossed his mind about what she did before this, but a doctor had never been one of them. "Being a doctor doesn't mean you can't feel pain." His stride was long as he stepped over her. There was a rustling of a plastic bag outside before he entered again holding a prescription bottle. "For the pain."

"Thanks." She laughed at the irony of the situation taking one of the pills. "The pain had gone before I went to sleep. My ankle would not have been a problem as long as it didn't suffer any trauma before morning. Good thing you respond fast otherwise I'd have ended up on your face."

"How come you didn't help T-Dog?"

"Yeah," Andrea realized. "How come you didn't help him? He had a wound just like yours."

"He had blood poisoning by the time I got to it. If sewn shut...it just wouldn't be smart. And we had no known medicine to stop it from getting bad until a few hours ago. It was just better not to touch it."

His nod was enough of a response for her. "Keep my spot. Don't want you falling again. I need my clip." Andrea handed him his gun.

"Where you headed now?"

"Gonna look for Sophia."

It was at that moment that Lily realized Carol had stopped crying momentarily. She'd been crying most of the night and it was one of those unconsolable fits of crying. It was just better to let her cry it out. Besides, there was no way to sooth a mother's tears when she'd lost her child. No words could describe her tears.

Andrea sat in the bench fiddling with the pieces of her gun for a few more seconds before grabbing some things and bolting out the door after Daryl to help him search. Lily couldn't blame them for leaving. Carol had been crying most of the night and it was all they could do to not get mad at her.

Carol dried her tears before speaking to Lily.

"You said you used to be a doctor before all this happened?"

Lily didn't want to answer but Carol needed someone to talk to and Lily knew that. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like to lose a child. "Yes, I was."

"What did you do?"

"I used to work in the ER, but got bumped down to something more low key like regular surgeries."

"Why?" Carol asked before Lily could continue.

"I was bumped down because my sister moved in with me and the transition was more than we were able to handle, so for the safety of the patients I agreed to be moved down to less traumatic and urgent patients. It was a great suggestion on my colleague's part. Once she settled in, I tried to move back to the ER but found it too traumatizing to return to now. Ironic considering where the world is now."

She continued to answer Carol's questions into the night because if she had learned anything by being a doctor it was not only that people needed to be kept busy, but they subconsciously needed to be kept busy.


	19. The Keys

Hey guys, sorry about the short wimpy chapters. I've been busy writing a chapter for this fic and forget that I need to catch you up on what's happening.

Sorry about the wait to yield a wimpy chapter, but another vacation is coming up. I'm driving some furniture across country with my dad and it'll take like ten days! I'll be writing in the car sometimes but I'll really need the episodes in front of me to have anything good written. Sadly I do not know the second season as well as I know the first…I guess that'e because I watched it on one day…Oops! Sorry not sorry! I'll do my best to post when I can.

I also want to give a shout out to all of you who are reading this. You are AWESOME and I LOVE YOU! Thanks for reading.

Lily Sullivan is mine everything else oblongs to who it belongs to.

* * *

"We're going to the farm now," Daryl said. Lily was sitting on the hood of a car reading when he came up to her the next morning. "Come on, we're heading out."

She slid off the hood of the car and held out her hand to him and he looked at it with confusion.

"Keys."

"To what?" he asked loudly.

"The truck."

"You expect me to let you drive it? After last night?" he scoffed.

"Well it's either me or Andrea who drives and I can drive well with both feet."

The look he gave her was one of distaste, but he trusted her more than Andrea so he reluctantly handed over the keys.

"Don't think because I let ya get away with it this time don't mean you will all the time."

"Thanks mom," she addressed his back getting a laugh from Andrea and Carol.

"Don't ya ever call me that again!"

"Jesus! What can I call ya?"

"You can call me by my name. Now get in the damn truck!"

She hopped in the truck sitting where she could favor her left foot more. Too bad stick shifts had to use two feet. The drive wasn't too long to the farm house which was nice for her ankle, but it was obvious she wasn't entirely ready to drive because of the twisted expression on her face when she parked. The door was louder than expected when she closed it.

"Don't ever let me let ya drive on a bad ankle again," Daryl smiled taking his keys back.

"It wasn't that bad!"

"No, it wasn't, but you were. There was pain all over your face."

There was going to be an argument, but he silenced her with his fingers to her lips.

Before either of them could speak to the other, Rick, Lori and T-Dog exited the house. They were followed by the owners of the house.

"How is he?" Dale asked Rick about Carl.

"He'll pull through," Lori said smiling, "thanks to Hershel and his people." Carl was ok. Lily smiled to herself.

"And Shane," Rick added. "We'd have lost Carl if not for him." Lily looked up to see Shane and the look which crossed his face was one of pleasure and one of guilt which made a shiver run down her spine. He was also wearing clothes ten sizes too big and he'd shaved his head. It was very unbecoming.

Dale, Carol, and Andrea rushed forward to hug the family and T-Dog.

"How'd it happen?" Dale asked.

"Hunting accident," Rick answered. "That's all. Just a stupid accident."

"Lily," Lori approached. "Carl's been askin' for you."

"Me?"

"Yeah. I'd like you to see him after the service."

"What service?"

"For Otis. He's the one who shot Carl and went with Shane to get the supplies to save him. It'll be over here." Lori lead Lily over to the group of people gathering for Otis's burial.

"Blessed be God, father of our lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to him for the gift of our brother Otis, for his span of years, for his abundance of character; Otis, who gave his life to save a child's, now more than ever our most precious asset..."

The words ran together into a jumbled mess as Lily stood there on her good foot. Looking around the semi circle of people, she read their expressions. There were the five people from the house who she did not know. Sad expressions filled every face of those she did know, all but Daryl and Shane. He appeared to be in deep concentration about something. And Daryl was standing with his arms crossed and his thumbs hooked on his torn sleeves with a look that suggested he was also thinking deeply about something.

Lily nudged Daryl lightly with her elbow and pointed over toward Shane. Daryl seemed to understand what she was gesturing at. Something was not right with Shane.

"Shane, will you speak for Otis?" the elderly man asked who'd been conducting the service.

"I'm not good at it. I'm sorry," Shane said looking down showing off his scalp where a chunk of hair was missing.

"You were the last one with him," a woman sobbed across from him. She was no doubt his wife. "You shared his final moments. Please. I need to hear. I need to know his death had meaning."

Shane had to answer her now. "Ok." He caved. "We were about done. Almost out of ammo. We were down to pistols by then. I was limpin'. It was bad. Ankle all swollen up."

Daryl elbowed her arm. She gave him a distasteful look. Now was not the time for jokes.

" 'We've gotta save the boy.' See, that's what he said. He gave me his backpack. He shoved me ahead. 'Run,' he said. He said, 'I'll take the rear. I'll cover you.' And when I looked back." The silence which followed was more than enough explanation that he had died.

"If not for Otis, I never would have made it out alive. And that goes for Carl too. It was Otis. He saves us both. If any death ever had meaning, it was his."

Liar. She knew it. It was written all over his face. Every time someone came into the ER, especially college aged kids, they always had the same look on their faces when they told her how they got hurt. It never failed. Every single one had that same look and at that moment, Shane had it all over his face.

"To the house. Now," Daryl ushered Lily as soon as the service was over.

The first step was a success, but the second sent her flying. She'd tripped over a root from one of the many trees.

"God damn it!" Daryl hissed throwing her over his shoulder after her caught her. "Can't you do anything without trippin'?"

"Put me down!"

"Nah, I got this. Just to the house, then you on your own. Why did you become a doctor, a small thing like you?"

"So I wouldn't have to go to the doctor. I hate needles and other people fixing me. That's why I learned so no one would have to. I could take care of myself."

His loud footsteps reached the porch and he set her down gently when they stepped inside.

"Where's Carl?" she asked the man who approached them.

"Name's Hershel," the elderly man who had conducted the service with white hair and beard said holding out his hand.

"You the doc?" Daryl asked him.

"Yes, sir. I'm the doctor of this house. Who's hurt?"

"Her." He patted her shoulder before leaving. "Now don't go twistin' it again."

"What's wrong with you girl?"

"Lily," she said sheepishly shaking his outstretched hand. "I tripped and twisted my ankle. It should be fine in a day or two."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I'm a doctor too. I just don't have any supplies to work with."

"Well, come with me and I will show you where we keep the supplies. Come on, this way."

Hershel walked through the house toward the kitchen but then turned to an office right next to it. Before he opened the door, he rested his hand on the handle. "I trust you're a real doctor not someone who claims to be."

"No, sir. I am an honest to God doctor."

"Before I let you in, I have a few questions to ask you."

"Yes, please. As long as you aren't going to stick any needles in me, we should get along just fine."

"What did you do?"

"Worked in ER then just scheduled surgeries."

"How long?"

"Eight years."

"Why did you become a doctor?"

"Because I'm afraid of needles when someone else holds them. So I learned how to help people which in turn helped me. That's why I became a doctor."

"I trust you know how to wrap your ankle?"

"Yes, sir."

"You may enter." He opened the door to reveal shelves of medical supplies but all she needed was an ace bandage for her ankle. It took her five minutes to find it buried in all the stuff on the shelves.

"Ice is in the kitchen." The kind elderly man turned to leave.

"Thank you. Wait!" He turned back to meet her eyes. "There's a boy here. Where is he?"

"What's your relation to him?"

"Concerned friend."

"You're Lily."

"Yes..." she said somewhat uncertainly because she'd already told him her name.

"He's in the first story bedroom. He's been askin' about you."

"Asking about me?"

"Yes, he needs you."

She bandaged her ankle and grabbed a bag of ice before making her way around the first floor looking for the bedroom. There were two bathrooms, a dining room, living room, stairwell to lead upstairs, but the bedroom was the last room she found after limping all around the first floor.

Lightly she knocked before entering. Carl's eyes lit up when he saw her.

"Lily!" She smiled and hugged him. "You came!"

"Of course I came. I had to check up on you."


	20. The Well

Thanks for the reviews guys! And a shout out to my new reviewer 7darkangel7! Thanks.

Ok so I haven't been posting because I've been one vacation and because I've been writing more for this story later on. It's driving me crazy so I've had to write it down. All I can say is prepare yourself for heartbreak… But I have been writing for this, just not what needed to come next.

The cross country trip is still not over but should be within the next few days, but I had down time and wrote this to hopefully keep you guys coming back.

Hope it's ok!

Lily is my OC blah blah blah...

* * *

"Hey, how are you two doin'?" Daryl asked when he walked in the door to Carl's room.

"Hey Daryl," Carl smiled. He seemed to think something was going on between the two adults, but all that was going on was that Daryl insisted on protecting Lily and she took comfort in it. "I'm good," Carl smiled.

Lily nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah, better. Much."

"That's good. Hey, I'm headin'out to look for Sophia. Be back fore dark."

"Take care. Stay safe," she said seriously but decided to lay it on thick just to make Carl laugh. "Use good judgement. Don't drink and drive. Don't use any mind altering substances of which I am unaware..."

"Oh, hell! Imma be fine!" he waved her off with a smirk before turning to leave.

"Mind altering substances of which I am unaware?" Carl laughed.

"My english teacher used to tell me that speech every Friday when I was in high school, bud. It's time I pass that speech on." She looked to Carl before getting to her feet. "You take care. I'm gonna head outside and see if I can help with anything. I'm tired of just sitting around. Get some sleep while I'm gone."

"Ok," he smiled at her.

She walked outside to see a group of six or so huddled around the well which Maggie, Hershel's eldest daughter, had pointed out for us to use. A group that big could only mean one thing. This couldn't be good.

"We gotta get it out," Shane said as Lily joined the circle standing between Andrea and T-Dog.

"Easy," T-Dog stated. "Put a bullet in its head. I'll get a rope."

Lily leaned over to peer inside the well where a walker was sloshing around in the water.

"Whoa, guys. No," Maggie ordered.

Glenn was there to retort. "Why not? It's a good plan."

"It's a stupid plan," Andrea snapped. "If it hasn't contaminated the water yet, blowing its brains out will finish the job."

"She's right," Shane agreed. "Can't risk it."

"So it needs to come out alive?" T-Dog asked sounding disgusted with the idea.

"So to speak."

"So how do we do that?" Glenn asked.

...

"He's not going for it," Dale announced as if we couldn't see for ourselves that the walker wasn't attacking the ham we lowered into the well.

"Maybe 'cause a canned ham don't kick and scream when you try to eat it," T-Dog suggested as we watched the walker shuffle around in the water looking at the ham almost asking itself if it thought we were stupid thinking the ham would work.

Lori piped up from her position in the dirt. "He's right. There's a reason the dead didn't come back to life and start raiding our cupboards."

"We need live bait," Andrea said what everyone feared to hear. Without looking up from the well, Lily could tell that all eyes fell upon Glenn and he gave no objections which made her feel bad.

Poor Glenn was always being forced into things he didn't want to be a part of and this time his life was more at risk than usual and Lily felt for him.

"Have I mentioned that I really like your haircut? You have a nice shaped head," Glenn muttered nervously to Shane as he was about to descend into the well. "Did I ever tell you that?"

"We're gonna get you outta here in one piece," Shane tried to reassure him.

"Living piece. That living part is important."

Lily watched him get all nervous before she moved over to him. "Give me the harness, Glenn."

"What?" he asked startled and unsure.

"Give it to me. I'm smaller and lighter than you."

"I can't-" She pulled him to his feet.

"Give it. Now."

Hesitantly he began to pull the harness off when Andrea approached. "What's this?" she asked. "Get that back on." Glenn began to pull the harness back on.

"Glenn," Lily chastised. "Please don't make me ask you again."

Glenn took it off and handed it over to her.

"Isn't Daryl going to worry?" Andrea inquired crossing her arms.

"Mom isn't even here. I'll be fine. And I'm gonna be fine unless one of you drops me. That understood?" Andrea snickered at her mom comment, but did not question her. If Lily wanted to be lowered in the pit with the walker, then she'd let her. Everyone else nodded to her not even going to think about questioning her ankle health.

Lily sat herself on the edge of the well and lowered herself down kicking away from the wall when she had to. The rope was coarse in her hands. The wet walker snarled beneath, splashing in the water. So far the live bait thing was working. The rope that was holding her was draped over a pipe that was placed over the middle of the well and wrapped around the water pump to use as a makeshift pulley.

"You guys are crazy," Maggie sighed.

"You wanna get it outta your well or not?" Shane asked her taking a hold of the rope.

"Give us an eye there, Maggie," Dale suggested. Crossing her arms worriedly, she walked over to the well and looked down at Lily.

"Remind me why I thought this was going to be ok?" Lily asked herself. "So you could prove herself to the others. That's why..." she answered. "To prove you're not as frail as they think...Stupid."

"What's that?" Maggie's southern accented voice asked from above.

"Nothing. Just talkin' to myself. Livin' the dream."

The rope that was going to be the fishing line was loose in her hands and if she hooked the beast she only hoped it would not fall in the well.

The walker moved back and forth in the beams of her flashlight eager for food descending closer to it.

"Little lower. Little more," Maggie informed the lowering crew.

The walker was only a few feet below her now and was getting more excited. That's when hell broke loose.

Nothing but air. That's what she felt when the rope went slack. A scream echoed off the walls around her as if reminding her that she was alone with the walker growing ever closer.

The rope went taunt as she was a foot above the snarling walker reaching up to take a chunk out of her leg. Screams echoed down the shaft from above as the six of them tried to pull her back out. Screams echoed up the shaft from below as Lily shouted for them to pull her back up.

Back and forth she swung like a bug in a spiders web just waiting to be eaten.

An eternity was spent shouting and struggling before she felt herself being lifted from the well. She took the line in her hands and cast it forcefully down at the walker before pulling herself out of the well where she flopped over onto the dirt panting.

Lori rubbed Lily's back as they all breathed heavily.

"Back to the drawing board," Dale said assuming that their plan had failed.

Lily cast him a glance that said never in a million years before getting to her feet and forcing the line into his hands. "Like hell."

Excitedly and curiously, the six of them gathered around the mouth of the well and saw the walked hooked on the end of it. Lily had done it.

...

After everyone had caught their breath, they grabbed a horse from the barn and tied to rope to its saddle to have the extra muscle pull the walker out. Everyone grabbed a hand of the rope even Lily who had done more than her fair share for the day and began to pull together.

Together their combined strength was able to lift the walker from the water and begin its ascent towards daylight.

Much heaving and grunting was heard before the walker's head poked above the well.

The head was first, then the neck and shoulders followed by the back but then something snagged the walker. It wouldn't budge.

'If we keep pulling, it'll snap!' Lily thought. She ran forward to grab the walker by its belt and pull when it split before her eyes. Blood splattered all over her as the walker snapped in half. The lower half fell back into the well while the head snapped at her ankles.

As everyone pulled themselves off the ground, T-Dog wielded the ladle form the bucket by the pump and threw it repeatedly at the walker's head. When he was done killing it he stood up and remarked, "Good thing we didn't do anything stupid like shoot it."

Maggie turned her back to the bloody walker with a beaten head and gasped for breath. It was always difficult to kill one and a part of Lily always grieved when she killed one, but it was dead and going to kill her. It came down to something a simple as fight or die and she didn't want to die. Maggie looked like she'd never seen one killed before. Living on a farm made the impact of the world falling apart slightly less severe, but to have never seen a dead walker seemed a little weird.

Lily brushed off her thoughts and walked in the house to shower the walker guts off her. She figured Hershel wouldn't mind.


	21. The Cherokee Rose

Kat: Thanks for the review! And yes, I did get kind of very lazy last chapter, I wanted to give poor Glenn a break so I used the well thing to also make Lily just a tad stronger. And the reason for copying 'livin' the dream' dialogue was because I love that line so much! Not sure if that's the copied dialogue you were referring to but that's one line I clearly remember using.

Lily belongs to me and Walking Dead belongs to Frank D.

* * *

When Lily was done showering, Carol had come back and Lily decided to join her not to give her comforting words because she'd heard more than she could handle, but to be there if she wanted to talk.

"Hey," Lily said crawling in the RV.

"I don't want to hear it," Carol retorted quickly.

"I'm not here to comfort you." That statement came off harshly which she did not intend, but she forged on. "I came if you needed someone to talk to and to help you clean." What she really wanted was to see Carol smile. A smile would mean she;d forgotten everything that had happened for a while even if it was just for a few seconds.

The look Carol gave her was one of appreciation because Lily could tell what mood she was in and respected it. She could see Lily wasn't going to try and make her feel better but was going to support her any way she could.

...

Daryl opened the RV door and stepped in. To his surprise he found all the dishes cleaned and the back tidied. Lily was sitting in the back with Carol when he came in and saw what they'd done.

"We cleaned up," she told him when he reached the back of the RV. "Wanted it to be nice for her."

"For a second I thought I was in the wrong place," he said chewing on a strand of grass. He then leaned over to the counter in the back and placed a beer bottle holding a flower with large white rounded petals down on it.

"A flower?" Carol asked.

"It's a Cherokee Rose. The story was when the soldiers were movin' the indians off their land on the Trail of Tears the Cherokee mothers were grieving and cryin' so much 'cause they were losing their little ones along the way from exposure and disease and starvation. A lot of them just disappeared. So the elders, they said a prayer; asked for a sign to uplift the mothers' spirits, give them strength and hope. The next day this rose started to grow right where the mothers' tears fell." His blue eyes never left Carol as he told her this story. She had to wipe a tear from her face. "I'm not fool enough to believe there's any flowers bloomin' for my brother. But I believe this one bloomed for your little girl."

Carol smiled. Daryl had made her smile. Seeing her smile was what Lily had been hoping for and once it had happened coming from someone else, her heart gave out to him if just for that moment.

Daryl walked to the door before stopping and facing her. "She's gonna really like it in here."

Lily patted Carol's back before leaving the RV. "We make a good clean up team," she said.

"Maybe we can do it again tomorrow," Carol said sarcastically smiling at her.

"Maybe."

Lily stepped out of the RV to find Daryl leaning against the side as if waiting for her to step out.

"Lily," Daryl whispered making her jump because she hadn't seen him. The sun had set and it was growing dark quickly outside. She had no idea it was that late. "What the hell were ya thinkin' today? Lowerin' yourself in that well..."

How did he know? "Andrea?"

He gave a single nod before gesturing to a tree away from the RV which they walked to.

"I was makin' a point," she responded.

"What was it? I'm a badass?"

"No." She looked away from his blue eyes, but he forced himself into the path of her blue and green ones.

"Then what the hell?!"

"You don't have to keep an eye on me at all times, Daryl." He looked at her begging to differ. "I am gonna be fine. You don't have to watch me all the time."

"Yes I do! Cause you won't look out for yo'self! And yore always gettin' hurt, like trippin' or cuts..."

"That cut was not self inflicted..."

He glowered at her distastefully remembering how it had happened. "An' ya always have to do the right thing. That's gonna get you in trouble one day."

"But today isn't that day?"

"God I hope not. Look, for the group's sake, don't be stupid."

"I'm being stupid?" she asked offended.

"You coulda been bit today easily and then there'da been two walkers in that well, not just halfa one."

"Ok, I'll be more cautious, but please give me a chance to actually do something. Today was the first time I've felt like I've actually been able to help this group. Before that I was like the little lost puppy you found walkin' in the woods and brought home 'cause I was small, cute, and defenseless. And I promised you I wouldn't give up, but how can I prove that if you don't let me do anything?"

Daryl was finally beginning to see that he was quite over protective, but after what had happened to his girlfriend, he just didn't want to see it happen again and was doing everything to make sure she was safe without even thinking to ask her how she felt.

"Ok, I'll back off, but you better not make me regret this."

"I won't."

She began to make for the house, but he grabbed her arm. "Hershel thinks seeing as you're well enough ta kill walkers then ya don't need the house."

"He told you this and not me?"

He shrugged rubbing the back of his head. "Hope ya don't mind but Merle's shit's in it's usual place...It was last minute and everywhere else is full..."

"Yeah," she smiled. "I'll take it. Thanks." He was sweet when he wanted to me.

By the way this conversation had ended she half expected him to say good night, but he didn't so she made her way to the tent and crashed on his brother's things. It was now awkward sleeping on his stuff because she knew he was gone. She could only wonder how Daryl felt about carrying his brother's things around.

That night she didn't hear Daryl come to sleep at all nor did she see him in the tent the next morning.


	22. The Search

r2j591: Here's one of those lessons you were looking forward to. Hope it reaches your expectations!

Lily learns how to use a crossbow in this chapter, but I am not sure how those work so I kind of winged it. On the other hand, I do know about compound bows and longbows. The compound story is true by the way…I did loose an arrow…And I still feel bad about it...

Lily is my OC and everything else belongs to Frank D.

* * *

Lily slipped her boots on before stepping outside the tent. Right outside the tent was a fresh plate of food. It couldn't have been there more than a few minutes because the flies hadn't found it yet.

"You plannin' ta do somethin' stupid today?" Daryl asked her not looking up from breakfast. He was seated right next to the tent on the ground.

"No," she responded cooly leaning against a tree crossing her arms. "I figured you owe me some of your time."

He shifted his weight to look up at her forcing the plate at her also giving her a look that urged her to continue.

"You promised me hunting and tracking lessons before we went to the CDC. I'd like them now."

He scoffed at her statement.

"So-so what? You just gonna leave again? Leave me here to do something else which happens to piss you off?"

"No." A smirk crossed his face when he offered his hand to her after putting his dirty dishes down. "Well you comin' or ain't ya?"

"Thank you," she sighed walking where he pointed to.

"Wait!" he hollered.

"What?"

"Eat your damn breakfast!"

"Yes, mom."

He gave her a threatening look.

...

"I don't like horses," Lily backed up away from the stable.

"Why not?" Daryl pet the horses nose.

"Got thrown from one when I was young."

"So you're like super scared of horses? Terrified to death?" He smiled thinking he could have some fun with her.

"No," she responded telling him his antics wouldn't affect her the way he's hoping. "I just am not a huge fan of them. Every time I get on one, bad things tend to happen."

"Well, nothin's gonna be bothering ya today. I guarantee that."

Throwing one leg over the horse, he settled himself into the saddle holding his hand out to her when he was situated. She reached out to take his hand but he pulled it back quickly.

Sighing, she pulled her hands back to her sides and forced them in her pockets as she turned and stalked away. She grabbed a coil of rope because rope is always good to have. If Daryl was going to come back and help her on the horse then he would but if not then she would look very stupid grabbing the rope while she walked away.

Horse hooves clicked behind her and shortly blocked her path. There he sat with one hand on the reigns and the other around his crossbow.

"Whoa there Speedy Jim." He was speaking to her not the horse.

Expecting to be lifted on the horse she was surprised when Daryl extended his crossbow hand towards her.

The look she gave him asked what she was supposed to do with it.

"Just take the damn bow and sling it across your back 'cause I can't wear it and have ya sittin' behind me. Kapeesh?"

She took a long look at the bow before throwing the rope over one shoulder and reaching for the bow. She'd never seen Daryl hand over his weapon or even let anyone else touch it so she was unsure whether to feel honored or be concerned. The weight of the bow was more than she expected it to be and it caught her off guard making her stumble a step. Daryl laughed as she slung it over her other shoulder. Only once that was done did he pull her up behind him.

"Hold on," he smiled placing his hand on the small of her back pulling her closer. Gingerly, she placed her hands on his waist not feeling comfortable wrapping her arms around him. "Ok, suit yourself," he smiled mischievously. Her nerves heightened when she heard him speak and was glad too because he took off on a full gallop out of the stables. After giving a slight cry of surprise and almost falling off, she wrapped her arms around his waist holding on tightly.

"You suck," she laughed as they rose off and he joined her laughter.

Once Daryl found a decent spot for lessons, he lowered Lily to the ground and tied the horse to a tree.

"See. Horses ain't so bad."

"We rode for ten minutes," Lily said flatly. "Hardly ample time for an accident to occur."

"I disagree. An accident can happen in a second. Let's get started with the crossbow."

She pulled it from her shoulder and held the bow the same way she'd seen Daryl hold it, but her arm still hurt from where Daryl had accidentally hit it. He smirked.

"What are you aiming at?"

"Oh come on! This thing is heavy and my alarm still hurts. I'm doin' the best I can here."

"First off ya need somethin' to shoot at. Come stand by me."

Lily lowered the bow and walked over to where he stood by a large oak tree.

"Now stand still long enough an' a squirrel is bound ta come by."

"You expect me to shoot a squirrel?"

"Well, I'm not letting you waste my arrows on leaves."

They stood by the tree not speaking for at least fifteen minutes before he tapped her arm. She looked at him and he pointed to a tree not too far off. On it's trunk, a squirrel sat contently cleaning it's tail.

His hand gently touched the space between her shoulder blades when she lifted the bow to her eye.

"Now take aim. Close one eye," he whispered barely audible.

One eye closed as she focused on the squirrel.

"When you squeeze the trigger, exhale."

She took a few deep breaths before exhaling and squeezing the trigger.

A loud twang filled the air when the arrow was released sending it flying towards the squirrel. It's head popped up at the noise and it scampered away. The arrow sank into the trunk of the tree.

Lily hissed in disappointment lowering the bow.

"Not a bad first shot. Did ya really think you'd hit somethin'?"

"No, I suppose not."

He took the bow and reloaded it for her.

"Your stance is wrong." He took a step closer standing right behind her. "You need to lift your arms like this." With his large hands, he lifted her elbows up ever so slightly. "Stager your feet."

When she readjusted her position, she could feel he had moved closer.

"Now close one eye, and pick something to aim at," his voice was still quiet, never above a whisper.

As she took aim right above the arrow she'd just shot a different squirrel appeared.

He slid his arms over hers guiding them to where they needed to go.

"Aim for it's head," he whispered in her ear.

She lifted her head to the sight but all she could feel were his arms wrapped around her. Her skin prickled wherever he touched making it extremely hard to concentrate.

"You're making this difficult," she whispered to him.

"How so?" he asked seriously.

"We're standing in a forest, alone, and you have your arms wrapped around me. Your muscly arms are rather distracting..."

"So?" Before she could make another comment, he wrapped his arms tightly around her pretending to throw her to the ground, but right before she hit, he stopped her fall. She gave a gasp of shock but when she realized she was safe began laughing.

"That's for calling me mom," he said at a normal volume looking down at her.

"You sure know how to kill a romantic moment."

"'Nough chatter." He pulled her back to a standing position. "Now shoot me some dinner."

She hefted the bow to her eye and felt him move in close again. Lifting her arms to where he said, she saw the squirrel who'd been taunting her all day. She took a deep breath letting the air fill her lungs and as she exhaled, she sent the arrow flying. An inhumanly scream filled the air as the arrow struck the squirrel.

"What the hell dja do?"

"I don't know!"

They both ran up to the squirrel and saw she had shot it through the tail pinning it to the tree. Daryl removed his knife and stabbed the screaming squirrel in the head. Killing walkers was one thing. That was protection, but this was food. Hearing the squirrel scream made a shiver run down her spine.

"Well, there's supper," he said stringing the squirrel and tying it to the horses saddle.

"That's nothing like a longbow."

"A what?"

"Longbow. You know the bow Robin Hood uses."

"You use a longbow?"

"No," she sighed but her sigh turned into a smirk. "It was my favorite bow of the ones I've used, but I don't actually own one of my own."

"An' when were ya gonna tell me 'bout this?"

"Whenever we found one. I like longbows. You knock an arrow into place, pull back, aim and release. That's it. Good for either hand and eye, last time I checked. The first time I used a compound bow, I was with my friend and realized my left eye was dominant, not my right, so I couldn't use the sight on the bow and as a result all my shooting was off and I lost one of my friends arrows. Stupid right eyes bow."

"And you lived in the city?" Daryl asked surprisingly interested.

"Yeah. Near it. I thought we went over this? My friend owned a farm and took me out shooting one day."

"You are just full of surprises." He clapped her on the back. "You like knives, camp, and know how to use a bow. Not jus one but like a decent number of 'em."

"I never said I was good at any of it..."

"But ya know. You can build of what's already there. You passed lesson one, now we need to look for Sophia."

"We're tracking her?" Lily asked eagerly.

"No. Trail's gone. We're jus searching for signs of her now. That's all we can do."

Lily threw the crossbow over her shoulder taking Daryl's outstretched hand. This time she wrapped her arms around his waist before he took off.

...

They rode to a hill where Daryl slowed the horse considerably.

"You see something?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, think so." He made kiss noises at the horse as he steered it over to the edge of the cliff face. When Lily looked down she gave a sharp exhale at the fall next to them. A small pond was beneath them and a waterfall and rocks right on the edge of the water.

"Ain't that the doll he always carried with her?" She followed the direction of his finger and saw something along the shore that was not colored like the rest of nature.

"Yeah, yeah that is! How do we get down there?" she shook his shoulder.

"Hold on hot stuff. Hand me my bow."

Taking the weight from her shoulder, she handed it over to Daryl who took it with one hand and used the other to move the horse away from the edge.

A thought occurred to Lily as Daryl looked for a way down to the small river. When she was a child she hardly ever left her doll unattended and if she ever did she'd lost it. If Sophia was anything like her child self then it took something big to make her forget her doll or she'd turned.

"Hey, Daryl-" her thought would go unsaid because just at that moment a hiss filled the air and the horse reared.

"Oh, shit!" Daryl shouted trying to calm the horse.

She clung to Daryl as if her life depended on it because right next to the cliff it did. The horse reared again and this time threw Lily from the back sending her flying through the air.

"Daryl!" she screamed. As she found him he was also air born but he was over the cliff plummeting towards the rocks below. His eyes met hers and she could swear she saw the same fear she felt echoed in his eyes.

She attempted to curl herself to brace herself for impact but that did little to stop her head from hitting the tree throwing her into a world of darkness.


	23. The Fall

Lily belongs to me and Walking Dead belongs to Frank D.

* * *

She was swimming through the air which she could only assume could be considered flying. And she was moving towards the sun. Why? The closer she got, the more her lower leg started to burn but only her lower leg.

When she got close enough to touch it, the sun burst into hundreds of pieces. Then those pieces turned into snakes. One of them came at her and as it opened its mouth to bite her with its huge dripping fangs, she jumped awake screaming.

She woke with a jump and her head and leg throbbed something awful. With a sigh, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and looked around. Her head was screaming and her leg hurt and she was in a forest.

A forest. Sophia. Daryl! Where was Daryl?

She rubbed the back of her head as she got to her feet and looked around. The pain in her leg caused her to miss a step but she caught herself on a tree hardly noticing the pain.

"Daryl!" she shouted panic evident in her voice. "Daryl!"

She looked over the side of the cliff she saw two figures down below. Daryl was one of them and the walker chewing on his boot was the other one.

"Hey!" she screamed throwing rocks at the walker. It's head turned to look up at her. She tied the rope around a tree at the top of the hill and lowered herself down. Daryl woke up and killed the walker chewing on his foot. Lily jumped the last bit of the hill and landed in the water making a sound loud enough to draw the attention of the other walker. It came at her as she drew herself out of the water and grabbed a stick which she used to bash in its head.

"Daryl!" she called running back to him. "Daryl, get up!" He was unconscious again. She grabbed Sophia's doll and stuffed it in her pocket.

Blood ran down his side from an injury he'd sustained, most likely from falling down the hill. To staunch the blood flow, she tore off her own shirt down to her tank top and made to tie it around his waist but saw the protruding arrow. He'd not pulled it out of his side and used his own shirt to stop the blood flow.

Lily pulled him to a sitting position leaning him against her shoulder. From there she wrapped one arm around him to keep him from falling and used her other hand to pull the arrow out of his side. The arrow tip was blunt, so it would cause less pain to pull it out of his back.

A painful sound came from him but she had to keep pulling it out. It was bad to stop now.

"Don't give up on me, you idiot!" she shouted giving the arrow one final tug. Her leg grew warm with the blood that dripped down his side so she tied her shirt around his waist. He gave a grunt of disapproval.

"Stop your complaining and get up!" she shouted. She tied the rope around his chest and dragged herself up the hill. Half an hour passed before Daryl regained consciousness and Lily made it to the top of the hill, but once he was awake he cut the ears off the walkers and strung them around his neck before he realized there was a rope around his chest.

"Come on! You need to get back to the farm!"

"What the hell?" he snapped at her.

"I'm saving your life. So grab the rope!"

He tied the rope around his wrist and after a long stretch of time spent cussing, slipping, and tugging, he made it to the top of the hill where he collapsed.

From that point on they limped back to the farm.

"Is now...a bad time...to say...I told you so?" she asked him as they limped.

"We'll talk about this later," he hissed.

An hour or so later, they reached the edge of the forest.

"Stay here. I'll get you help," she told Daryl who was leaning against a tree before sprinting towards the camp. Someone was on watch so they had to see them. They had to. And when they did, they'd get help. There was no point in shouting because four of the men were running towards her just as quickly as she was running towards them. They were fine. Daryl could get his side stitched up and nobody else would get-

A gunshot filled the air. Lily collapsed.


	24. The Bite

This is most likely the last chapter update for the day. I figured four was a good number to upload to ay thanks for waiting while I was on vacation.

Lily is mine.

* * *

"Come on,sweetheart. Open those eyes." Daryl was patting her face trying to get her to wake up.

"Atta girl."

He was pale, covered in dirt and looked like he had slammed into a brick wall. "You look like a walker," she sighed.

He laughed almost too hard. "You're one to talk. You're the one with a hole in your shoulder."

Looking down at her shoulder she saw blood soaking the bandages that were wrapped around her chest.

"Andrea shot you. Bullet passed through you then hit me."

"Please tell me again why was she shooting at us? And why are we not dead?"

"Thought I was a walker. Saw ya running towards camp with me hobblin' behind you. Aimed and fired at me when you ran in the path of 'er bullet and took it. So she says. She's also a shitty shot. You were also bit by a snake..."

"Oh, good you're awake," Maggie said from the doorway.

"Wait," Daryl interjected holding his hand out to stop her. "Let her be for a few minutes."

"Why? What's going on?" Lily asked him.

"Surgery."

"Surgery? No, I can't handle surgery. Not while I'm conscious. Is there any way around it?"

"No, there's not," Hershel said walking into the room holding a bag of supplies. "And it's not exactly surgery per say. It's more of a stitching up which is after a surgery takes place. It's something I should have stitched up hours ago but it wasn't safe. Son, could you grab her, please."

"Don't touch me, please," she told Daryl. "What is this for?"

"Your shoulder needs to be sewn. We had to make sure you were conscious before we began because if we didn't you could have died during the night from the poison of the snake bite. Waste of supplies and time, you understand."

"Yes, I do, but do I have to be conscious for this? Is there no way for you to knock me out?"

"No." Hershel nodded for Daryl to take her arms so he could begin.

"Look, I'm not gonna get involved in this-" he held up his hands stepping away.

"Take her arms."

"Daryl, I can get this." It was Rick. "Your side might split if you move too much. I can take care of her."

Rick sat on the bed, pulled her arms behind her back and wrapped an arm around her chest to hold her to him.

"Maggie," Hershel called. "She will grind her teeth without anesthetic."

Hearing there would be no anesthetic sent Lily into a mode of panic. Her breathing increased and she closed her eyes. Maggie forced something between Lily's teeth so she wouldn't bite her tongue. Receding footsteps filled the room as Daryl left.

The bloody bandages fell to the bed as her shoulder was exposed.

Rick closed his eyes allowing him to clutch her tighter. Nothing pained him more than seeing people in pain, but he was the only person who could hold her for surgery so he had to hold himself together.

Muffled groans and screams of pain filled the room as Hershel worked on sewing up her shoulder.

As Hershel worked he had a sad expression on his face. When he saw Lily's tear filled eyes he had to tell her. "It is likely your arm won't heal to its proper health. The bullet damage is too severe in some places and may not heal entirely."

Tears ran down her face as she doubled in pain. Then to top off the day, Rick had to keep her hunched over to sew up her back where the bullet exited.

"She's done. There's no need for visitors. Let her rest," Hershel said as he finished wrapping her shoulder again. "Keep everybody out."

...

The pain in her arm was always constant and it was hard not to cry. She had to toughen herself up, but maybe once she could use her left arm again. Footsteps approached the door and she expected Daryl to be there but the footsteps were too quiet to belong to him so she wasn't too shocked when Carl opened the door.

"Lily, are you ok?"

"Yeah," she sniffed. "I'm fine. What's wrong?"

"I heard you." Her words froze on her tongue. "It gets better," he said walking over to her and sitting on the bed. The wind blew in through the open window making him shiver.

"Come over," she said lifting the sheets offering him a space next to her. Carl fit into the space under her right arm.

"The pain goes away," he told her. "It hurts but it does go away after time."

The wind made him shiver again. Lily reached down to the foot of the bed to grab the quilt but searing pain shot through her arm causing her to groan.

"I've got it," Carl said reaching down but his side caused him pain.

They laughed at their injuries and Carl got the quilt for them. Lily tucked Carl in before settling down herself.

"Well, on the bright side, you're right handed."

"Who told you I was right handed?"

"Everybody's right handed."

"Not me," Lily smiled, "I use my left hand for everything. Well, I did. Gonna have to learn how to use my right hand more."

"What's it like being left handed?"

"A hassle. You have to get special scissors and spiral notebooks are always a pain to write in. And you usually end up with pencil smudges on your hand if you don't lift it off the paper."

"Sounds painful."

"At times it is."

The two of them sat there while the others ate dinner and eventually they drifted off.

...

"Where's Carl?" Lori's panicked voice reached Lily's waking ears. Lily leaned forward to place a kiss on Carl's sleeping head, but she remembered he was not hers to kiss so she sufficed with a gentle head pat before sliding her arm from under his head.

A hand on her back made her jump. "I'll tell them." Rick patted her back. "I knew he'd be curious about what happened up here. Get some sleep."

She nodded before crawling back in bed next to the softly snoring Carl sliding her arm back under his head. The soft footsteps of Lori reached her ears. Lori was the protective adult that Lily wished she'd been toward her sister. That was part of the reason she'd jumped up so quickly to save Sophia. Sophia had been like her younger sister and losing her had killed her.

"He needs to be back in his own bed. He'll hurt his side," Lori whispered.

"It's bringing comfort to Lily," Rick argued. "She's been through a lot. Besides, he came up here to see her. Just leave him. Please."

"Ok," she nodded. "Ok."


	25. The Punch

Daryl getting mad. Good idea.

Lily is mine.

* * *

Carl was gone when she woke up. The sun was high in the sky when she looked out the window and a change of clothes were on the chair in the corner. With much strain, she pulled herself from the bed and put up her hair before sliding on the clean underclothes, shorts, tank top and button up long sleeved shirt. Thankfully the chair had been no more than an arms length from the bed so she didn't have to stand, but when she did, she collapsed to the floor.

Looking down at her throbbing leg, she saw the bandage and pulled it away seeing the two puncture marks which had been cut over with at 'X'. She knew the reason to cut the 'X' was to bleed the poison out of her system from when she'd been bitten by the snake.

"Man, no wonder I hurt so bad. I didn't believe Daryl when he said that."

'It was only yesterday I was bit, and hours before anybody knew about it. If it was poison then I'd be feverish and still in bed if not dead. I got lucky.'

With more effort she pushed herself to her feet and made for the door. She wanted to make sure Daryl was ok.

Outside she found Daryl in his tent lying on his bed which had gained a few more pillows since she'd seen it last.

"Think I'm getting too used to sleeping in a bed again. Shouldn't get used to it."

"What the hell are ya doin' out here?" he asked her getting up from his bed meeting her outside his tent.

"How's your head?" When she reached up to touch it, she could see he would prefer her not touch it but he would let her anyway. She saw this look on his face and curled her fingers before she actually touched the path the bullet grazed on his head.

"Harder than your shoulder," he replied stiffly crossing his arms.

She laughed.

"That bullet ripped through it like a hot knife through butter."

Again she laughed.

"Glad you're walkin'." He gently nudged her unharmed shoulder with his fist.

"I should say the same for you. Will you let me see your side? See if I made it worse or not by pullin' the arrow out."

"I don't know," he smirked. "What's in it for me?"

"There's a pretty awesome snake bite."

"You got yourself a deal." He lifted the side of his shirt as she moved over to get a better look at it.

Her fingers were light against his side making him tense. The area where the arrow had been was still red and irritated as to be expected, but other than that and the stitches, it looked fine. Under the back of his shirt, Lily could see scars poking out and when Daryl caught her looking he moved his shirt to cover them.

"Stitches can come out in two days," she said standing up.

"So fast?" he asked throwing his shirt down quickly. "What about you?"

"Longer..."

"Where's my snake bite?" he asked changing the subject.

She placed a hand on his shoulder to use him as balance lifting her bitten leg up where he caught her foot in his hands and gave a small whistle.

"Worse than I remember," he sighed. "I got bit once. Hurt like hell. How yours feelin'?"

"Do I have to answer?"

"That bad huh? Now the pain in your snake bite should go away in a couple days."

"So you're the doctor now?"

"For this kinda shit, yeah. Now, sit down. Come on. Take a seat. That's gotta hurt."

He helped ease her down to his bed in the tent seeing as his was more for sitting than her part of the tent.

"Better?"

"Yeah. I'm just glad it wasn't poisonous."

"Hey, Lily!" It was Rick who ran up to the tent and peeked inside. He nodded to Daryl. "A group is going out to shoot today to learn how and I was wondering if you wanted to come with?"

"Thanks," she said. "But no thanks."

"I figured sense you were walking I could still ask."

"Yeah, and I appreciate that, but I am trying to avoid guns for right now. Thanks anyway."

"She's a pretty good shot with the crossbow, so I wouldn't worry about 'er too much," Daryl said.

"Alright. Well, whenever you want lessons and you're feeling better, feel free to just come and give me a visit."

His whole demeanor had changed in the last minute and she wondered why.

"Here's all this around to keep ya busy." He laid a series of books and other things down between her and the door of the tent.

"Hey, I'm sorry, guys," Andrea said sheepishly walking up to Daryl who was backing out of the tent.

"Can we talk, Andrea?" he said calmly. Before he walked off with her he cast a glance at Lily and zipped up the tent.

"Daryl!" she called before falling over the things he'd placed between her and the door. 'Damn. He planned this.'

"Daryl, I know I screwed up. I am so sorry," Andrea said.

"Sorry? Ya almost killed her tryin' to make a point," his voice was eerily calm.

Lily made it to the door and found that Daryl had tied the two zippers together preventing her from getting out.

Andrea sighed. "Yeah I know and I almost paid the price by losing you two."

"Look," he said almost calmly. "I don't care what you were trying to prove with shooting us and I don't care whether it's an accident or it ain't but you should have made sure you killed me with a stunt like that."

Lily thrust her knife between the two zippers severing the tie that kept them together and threw herself out scrambling towards the two before something bad happened.

Daryl's hand was raised to hit Andrea and she would not have put up a fight but something was keeping him from continuing.

"Daryl!" Lily shouted.

His hand came down on Andrea's throat and she gasped clawing at his hand.

Before Lily completely thought through what she was going to do, she threw a punch at his face and threw herself between the two grabbing his hand and placing her other on his face when he recoiled. All of the muscles tensed in his hand which is the reaction she wanted. He was caught off guard. His face was hard and confused when he met her eyes.

"Daryl, don't do this. It was an accident. One hell of one, but an accident none the less. I'm fine." Moving her other hand down, she placed both on his face. "Don't do this."

Roughly he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck looking into her eyes.

"I'm fine," she whispered. "I'm fine. It was an accident."

After staring in her blue and green eyes he cast a hateful glance over her shoulder at Andrea before storming off.

"Thank you," Andrea said sighing with relief grabbing her throat. "I thought he might have killed me."

"Not saying he wouldn't have, but I didn't do it for you," Lily answered stiffly. "A word of advice, watch where you're shooting next time and don't miss."


	26. The Barn

Again guys, thank you for the reviews! They are wonderful.

Kinda bad news but also good news. I am going to a camp in a week which means I won't be posting as much during that week, but good news I have a lot written so I should be posting a lot this week…Yay!

Lily belongs to me.

* * *

The next morning Lily woke up in Daryl's bed. It took her a few minutes to remember that he practically threatened to drag her back inside to the bed upstairs she'd used many times unless she took his spot, so she did.

He was already awake reading one of the books someone had brought him from the RV and was waiting for her to wake up so he could help her to breakfast. He wrapped one arm around her waist to help her hop to the chairs around the fire where Carol was cooking even though she could have done it on her own.

Andrea was sharpening a large knife on what looked like a cheese grater, Shane was chewing loudly, Daryl was getting food, Carol cooked, the Grimes ate, T-Dog was sipping coffee, And Glenn and Dale were giving each other strange looks as if they were carrying on their own silent conversation. Glenn looked over his shoulder at the house where Maggie was glaring at him from the porch. No doubt still mad about what had happened yesterday.

Yesterday night at dinner, Carl had talked to Lily about how his mom was pregnant and that she tried to kill the baby and his dad got angry. Lily was interested as to how he came across this information considering she doubted his parents told him. What also made everything interesting was how Maggie was all angry about it. She'd almost been chewed to pieces by a walker but she did quite overreact.

Daryl handed her a plate and plopped on the ground next to her and they began eating. She had to go right handed because it hurt her left arm too much to do anything. Looking down at him, she could see he was chewing food on only one side of his mouth.

"Sorry about yesterday," she said starting at her food.

"Nah," he speared some eggs. "Ya had every reason ta punch me."

"You locked me in the tent..."

"You coulda torn right through the side..."

"Yeah and had to stitch it up later. It was better just to get out the normal way."

"Whatever."

"How's your face?"

"How's your hand?"

She had to place her hand in his outstretched one because he took her food.

"God, you're stubborn."

Bruises peppered her knuckles from where she attacked him yesterday, but they would be gone in a day.

"It was a great punch. One for the books."

"Now your face..." He grimaced when she placed her hand on his face to turn him towards her. The bruising was faint but covered his jaw and inched its way over part of his chin and up his cheek and it was all tucked under stubble. "Ouch."

"Had worse." He gave her food back.

'What was the point of keeping her out of the way when Andrea came to apologize?'

"What were you going to do?"

Seeing as they were the only two talking, their conversation had drawn some heads. "What?"

"What were you planning to do? You obviously had a plan to keep me out of the way should I have shown up. What were you gonna do?"

"I don't know!" he threw his fork at his plate. That noise drew all the heads. Glenn stood up taking this moment to change the subject.

"Um, guys..." Glenn stuttered. "So, the barn is full of walkers."

Everything stopped. All that could be heard was the chirping of birds and the popping of the fire. There was not sipping or chewing. Just complete silence.

Shane explored the barn as the rest of the group filed in behind him. Daryl kept Lily next to him if not behind him at all times.

Shane shouted to Rick. "You cannot tell me you're all right with this!" when he stormed away from the barn.

"No, I'm not, but we're guests here. This isn't our land."

"Oh, God! This is our lives!"

"Lower your voice," Glenn urged.

"We can't just sweep this under the rug," Andrea spoke up.

"It ain't right, not remotely."

"No, Shane," Lily spat. "It isn't. It's twisted, but this isn't for us to decide. This is Hershel's farm."

"Shut up!" he threw at Lily before he began pacing. "We either gotta make things right or we've just got to go. Now we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time."

"We can't go!" Rick shouted.

"Why, Rick? Why?"

"Because my daughter is still out there," Carol pipped up. She was right. We couldn't leave without Sophia, even though Lily felt their time to find her had come and gone. The group needed closure and Rick wouldn't stop until she was found.

"Yeah?" Shane ran his hands over his face. "Carol, I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility."

"Shane, we're not leavin' Sophia behind!"

"I'm close to findin' this girl!" Daryl interjected. "We jus found her damn doll two days ago."

"You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did. You found a doll."

"You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about."

"I'm just sayin' what needs to be said. Now you get a good lead, it's in the first 48 hours."

"Shane, stop," Rick tried being the voice of reason.

"Let me tell you somethin' else, man. If she was alive out there and saw you comin' all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction!" Shane shouted at Daryl.

Lily pushed her way in front of Daryl to stop him but as soon as she did, realized she made things worse. Reminding him of her presence and how she almost died in search of this little girl and he lost it.

Daryl pushed her aside as he took off after Shane. Rick, Glenn and T-Dog were trying to break everyone up but Shane was still able to punch Daryl in the face. There was no way for him to retaliate because they were pulled apart.

Lily reacted so fast she didn't know what came over her. While Rick, Lori and others were busy trying to keep the two apart she came around and punched Shane in the face. She punched him so hard she cut his face but he didn't even see the blood before he slapped her. The force of the slap sent her spinning to the ground. The breath was knocked from her lungs when pain shot through her arm.

Daryl shouted in rage and charged Shane again, but somehow Rick held him off.

Shane made to jump on her, so she raised her feet and kicked him in the chest and using the momentum to roll back onto her feet, throwing him farther back than he thought she was ever capable of. In his eyes, she saw something other than anger. It was jealousy. Jealousy for what? Carl. It had to be. Since coming to the camp Carl had taken an instant liking to her and drew away from him. Punching him just gave him an excuse to take his anger out on her. Rick still held onto Daryl forcing him back and before Shane could attack her again, Lori threw herself in front of him.

Daryl shook Rick off him and stomped over to Lily and stood in front of her.

"Now just let me talk to Hershel! Let me figure it out," Rick shouted.

"What are you gonna figure out?!" The rage in Shane's voice made Lily jump and he cast her a stern look. Daryl placed himself directly between the two examining the bruise forming on her face. He was mad at her but was glad she did it because he would have.

"Enough!" Lori shouted throwing her hands up between Rick and Shane.

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear of this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land."

"Hershel sees those things in there as people-" Dale interjected. "Sick people- His wife, his stepson."

"You knew?"

"Yesterday I talked to Hershel."

"And you waited the night?"

"I thought we could survive one more night. We did," Dale said sternly defending his case. "I was waiting till this morning to say something, but Glenn wanted to be the one."

"This man is crazy Rick. If Hershel thinks those things are alive or no."

The barn door began to shake with the force of the walkers against it. Their shouting was ringing the dinner bell for the walkers cooped up inside. Daryl escorted Lily back to camp and put her back in the tent.

"I'll be back," he told her before leaving.

Shortly after he left Carol crouched in the entry way to the tent.

"Do you know where he's going?" Carol asked.

"He's going after Sophia again. I can't keep up with him right now. Could you say something to him for me please? He needs to stay behind. His side...It could just get worse."

"Won't he just listen to you?"

"No, he'll just blow me off."

"He listens to you whether or not you can see it and he doesn't hurt you. Think about it. You punched him yesterday and he didn't kill you."

"You've got a point. Could you still please talk to him?"

"Yeah, I'll talk to him," Carol smiled. Then a thought came to her. "Come listen in. Just in case I need saving. Ok?"

"Yeah, I'll be behind you."

Carol and Lily started off walking toward the stable together, but when they got close enough, Lily fell behind and stood off to the side of the entrance listening in.

He hauled a saddle in from the building adjacent to the stable.

"You can't," Carol told him.

"I'm fine," he lied grabbing his side.

"Hershel said you need to heal."

"I don't care." He took a bit from one of the posts.

"Well, I do. Lily thinks so too." His movements stopped. "But she won't tell you because she knows you will just ignore it. She cares for you."

'I didn't tell her to say that!'

"Rick's goin' out later to follow the trail."

"Yeah well, I ain't gonna sit around and do nothin'." The horse he made to saddle was not Nervous Nelly but the other one.

"No, you're gonna go out there and get yourself hurt even worse. We don't know if we're gonna find her, Daryl. We don't. I don't."

His motions stopped and he stepped out of the stall. "What?"

"I can't loose you too."

Lily gasped covering her mouth with her hands. 'What the hell did she bring me down here for? To let me hear that she loved Daryl. I don't love him. What's going on? What's she mean?'

Daryl grunted throwing the saddle making his side ache.

"Are you alright?"

"Jus leave me be. Stupid bitch."

When he stepped from the stable, throbbing side or not, Lily punched him across the face because she swore she'd never slap him again.

"Son of a bitch!" he hissed.

"Don't you _ever_ call her that! Just because you haven't given up doesn't mean that the rest of us haven't either." Lily snapped. "Carol came to tell you to stay behind because you won't listen to me. You need to let yourself heal. You just need to let yourself heal." She then backed off and headed toward camp before either of them could say anything to her.


	27. The Falling Out

r2j591: Lots of really good questions. Hopefully the have all been answered.

MaddyMarie1212: Excellent point!

Lily is my OC.

* * *

"What the hell was that for?" Daryl grabbed her arm.

"I was angry."

"So you punched me?" She didn't look at him. "Again!"

"It was better than hitting Carol! She's been through hell not knowing what happened to her daughter. And then you called her a bitch."

"She's not left camp once to look for her daughter! Ya almost died twice looking for 'er and you're defendin' her?!"

"But I didn't die!"

"And why didya hit me and not her?"

"Because she's lost her daughter!"

"You don't know that!"

"Daryl, we almost died looking for this girl! That should be more than a reasonable clue that she's gone. There's no trail to follow anymore. You stopped following her trail days ago! There's nothing left."

He scoffed rolling his eyes.

"This is just a dream to find this girl alive. She's gone. You've done your part. You don't owe these people anything. Don't kill yourself looking for this girl, Daryl! Don't leave me alone!"

She never saw the hand which slapped her.

"Don't you ever tell me what ta do! You don't know me!" He stormed off as she grabbed her face.

...

"What's wrong?"

Carl's question made Lily jump awake.

"What's that?"

"Daryl hit you?"

She sighed. "You saw that?"

"Yeah, most did." Lifting her head to look around the camp and saw a few people turn away from her.

"Come with me. It's school time and it gets boring. Teach me doctor things."

"Ok," she caved getting to her feet and following the over eager boy to school work.

"What's this, baby?" Lori asked. "I told you to get the book from the tent..."

"Oh, yeah! Be right back!" Carl then sprinted off to grab the book from his tent and Lily sat down next to Lori.

"What happened between you two today?"

It was almost nice not having to explain what had happened because she had already seen it happen.

"I said Sophia is gone and that he should stop looking?"

"So you think my husband should stop looking too?" Lori spat.

"Lori, I didn't say that. I told Daryl not to risk his life anymore." A harsh look was thrown at her. "Don't give me that look. We were thrown off a cliff and then shot, which I understand was an accident but seriously? Who let her take watch? Anyway, I love Sophia like she was my own, but don't you think it's been long enough? If there was any indication about her being alive, don't you think we'd have found more? I'm sorry if I have offended you, but that's what I think."

Lily looked away from Lori and saw Daryl walking off with Carol into the woods to do what, she didn't care. He could make his own decisions.

"I'm not saying you're wrong, we just need to keep hopes high and hope for the best."

"Mom, the book isn't here!" Carl shouted from the tent.

"Yeah, babe, it's there. Check under the table!"

"Got it!"

"All I'm saying is you can believe that she is gone, but don't go bragging about it to the others because they will not be happy to hear it. Can you not to tell anyone?"

"Yeah, I can. For how long?"

Lori gave her a distasteful look before turning her attention to Carl.

"School has officially started."

Most of the next hour was spent learning math and about how to take care of minor common injuries with Lori's consent. In that time Lily noticed Dale, Shane, Maggie, and Glenn all having disputes of their own.

"I'm gonna go get some water."

"Can I go with Lily, mom?"

"Yeah. Make it fast."

Lily carried Carl into the kitchen and set him on the ground getting two glasses for them. They drank their fill before going to stand on the porch where Beth and Patricia invited him to join a game they were playing. Lily jumped up on the railing and closed her eyes for a short time.

"Do you know what's goin' on?" T-Dog asked approaching the porch making Lily jolt awake.

"Where is everyone?" Andrea asked from her spot next to T-Dog.

Glenn got to his feet. "You haven't seen Rick?"

"He went off with Hershel. We were supposed to leave a couple of hours ago."

Lori shot Lily a stern look that only she understood.

"Yeah, you were. What the hell?" Daryl walked up with Carol right next him. He didn't even look at Lily.

"Rick told us he was goin' out," Carol added.

"Damn it. Isn't anybody takin' this seriously? We got us a damn trail. Oh, here we go."

Shane approached with the bag of guns slung over his shoulder.

"What's all this?"

"You with me man?" Shane asked holding a gun out to Daryl. "Time to grow up. You got yours?"

"Yeah. Where's Dale?" Andrea asked.

"He's on his way."

"Thought we couldn't carry?" T-Dog asked taking the gun from Shane.

"We can and we have to. Look," Shane addressed everyone. "It was one thing sitting around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't. How bout you, man? You gonna protect yours?" He gave a gun to Glenn.

"Can you stop?" Maggie asked. "You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight."

"We have to stay, Shane," Carl piped up.

"What is this?" Lori asked.

"We ain't goin' anywhere ok?" Shane tried to reassure her. "No, look Hershel, h's just gotta understand. Ok? He- Well, he's gonna have to."

"Sound like you gave that one a lot of thought, Shane..." Lily stated jumping from the railing.

'This is so wrong! Shane is about to kill every chance we have of a safe place to live!'

"Now, we need to find Sophia. Am I right? Now I want you to take this." Shane handed a gun out to Carl. "Now you take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes. You know how. Go on, take the gun and do it."

"Rick said no guns," Lori hissed pushing Carl behind her. "This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."

"Oh, shit." Everyone turned to see where T-Dog was looking and saw Rick, Hershel, and Jimmy leading two walkers out of the woods.

After Shane dropped the gun he took off in a full sprint towards Rick and Hershel and all hell was about to break loose. Lily took off in a dead sprint ignoring the pain in her leg and in her lungs as she charged him. Daryl watched her pass him on her way to stop Shane.

"What the hell are you doin'?" Shane shouted.

"Shane, just back off!"

"Why do your people have guns?"

The second she was close enough she launched herself onto Shane's back and wrapped her arm around his throat.

"Shane! Calm down! Calm down!" He threw her from his back and T-Dog jumped in front of her. There was no need to because Shane was focused on the walkers Rick and Hershel were holding at the end of a snare.

'What the hell?'

Everything was a blur before she was able to get back to her feet and hear the shouts.

"These things aren't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gonna feel nothing for them 'cause all they do, they kill! These things right there! They're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us. Hey Hershel, man, let me ask you somethin. Could a livin' breathin' person walk away from this?"

Shane pulled out a pistol and shot the walker Hershel was holding onto. Three rounds through the abdomen. It recoiled and kept coming.

"Could someone who's alive, could they just take that? Why is is still comin'?" Three more rounds. "That's its heart, it's lungs. Why is it still comin?"

"Shane, enough!" Rick shouted.

"You're right that is enough." Shane stomped over to the walker and shot it in the head.

The look on Hershel's face was complete and total devastation.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!"

Carol gasped.

"Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us. Enough. Rick, it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, You gotta fight for it! I'm talking about fighting right here, right now."

The next moment was filled with Rick screaming for Hershel to take the snare pole, and Hershel staring blankly at the barn that Shane was opening.

'Here, it goes.'

Shane beat the locks off the door before standing back and letting the walkers do the rest of the work. They began pouring out of the barn like ants out of an ant hole. The others who had been issued guns ran forward to begin the execution.

'This is wrong!' Lily looked at Hershel. 'He is crazy to keep walkers locked up like this. Damn it, Shane. This didn't have to be the way!'

One by one the walkers fell by bullet. The Greene family was in distress and it was obvious. Their family was being slaughtered right in front of their eyes. Now maybe if Rick had, had more time to talk to Hershel maybe this wouldn't be happening.

Halfway through the massacre Shane turned around and killed the walkers in Rick's hands.

An eternity passed before all the walkers were dead.

Lily was curled up when she heard the last footsteps shuffling out of the barn. All of the years listening to people shuffle around the hospital told her that those footsteps belonged to a child. Hearing the sob from Carol was proof enough that it was Sophia.

Lily couldn't find the strength to look up and see the girl before her so she just chose not to look up.

Light feminine snarling filled the air as the shuffling continued. No one was breathing at the horror before them.

"Sophia? Sophia!" Carol ran forward but Daryl caught her and fell with her to the ground making sure she wasn't going to endanger the rest of the camp by getting bit.

With a heavy heart Lily looked up and saw Rick standing with his gun hand raised. His body hid Sophia from her view.

After a sharp breath, he pulled the trigger.


	28. The Lost Child

MaddieMarie1212: No! I know it would never happen and I regretted every second of writing it! But there was a reason for it...

* * *

Tears and sadness. That's all that followed the massacre that Shane brought upon the farm.

Daryl tried to pull Carol to her feet, but she just pushed him off her and ran to the RV.

The youngest Green girl, Beth stumbled over to cradle her step mother's head in her lap only to find out that she wasn't completely dead yet. She screamed as her mother's decaying hands reached up to pull her step daughter close to take a bite.

Lily ran forward and wrapped an arm around the girl's waist. Several others surrounded her. Some went for Beth while the others went for the walker.

A hand grabbed the scruff of her shirt and threw her out of the way. Shane.

'What the hell have I done to piss you off so greatly? Why does he keep doing this?' she thought pulling her knife from her pocket and jumped back into the fray.

The knife collided hitting its target.

The walker fell with a thud.

As Lily cleaned her knife in the grass, Shane took off after the Greenes but not before casting her a nasty look.

"We've been out. We've been combing these woods looking for her. And she was in there all along?" Shane approached the Greene's as they were walking back to the house to cope with what they had just seen. "You knew!"

"Leave us alone," Maggie shouted to him.

"Hey, Shane, just stop, man," Rick said grabbing his shoulder.

"Get your hands off me. You knew and you kept it from us."

"I didn't know."

"That's bullshit."

"We didn't know," Maggie snapped.

"Why was she there?"

"Your-Otis put those people in the barn. Maybe he found her and put her in there before he was killed."

"You expect me to believe that? What do I look like? An idiot?"

"You brought this hell upon the farm Shane! You have no right to be asking questions!" Lily shouted at him. Shane spun to face her and fire burned in his eyes but Rick stopped him before he could do anything.

"I don't care what you believe!" Hershel shouted.

"Everybody just calm down!" Rick tried being piece maker.

"Get him off my land!"

"Let me tell you somethin'."

"Hey. Don't you touch him!" Maggie slapped Shane and he just backed off. "Haven't you done enough?"

"I mean it-off my land."

Rick saw the anger in Lily's eyes over Shane's actions and threw an arm up even though she wasn't going to do anything.

"What are you doin'?" Rick asked the now silent Shane. "Hey, what are you doin'?"

"Daryl and Lily almost died lookin' for her. Any one of us could have. I'm gonna tell ya, Rick- That son of a bitch, he knew."

"He did not know. He's not like that. He opened his home to us."

"Put us all in danger. Man, he kept a barnful of walkers."

"So you just start an insurrection, hand out guns and massacre his family?"

"His family's dead, Rick."

"Well, he doesn't believe that. He thinks you just murdered him in cold blood."

"No, man, I don't care what he thinks."

"I was handling it, brother."

'Brother? I knew they had to be close I just didn't know how close. I'm done with this.' She walked away from the conversation to hear the final note from Shane. "You're just as delusional as that guy."

She walked away from the house and saw Andrea walking back to the barn with a blanket in her hands. She was wiping tears from her eyes when she saw Lily.

When she saw Lily looking at her and had to double check to make sure there wasn't someone behind her. "You-you wanna help?" She asked through tears.

"Yeah," Lily responded with a knot in her throat. Sophia was dead. She was officially gone. Two people had almost died for her.

"This sucks."

"No shit." Lily wiped a tear of her own. "At least we know."

"Yeah. Hey, look I'm sorry for shooting you-"

"Don't. I'm still alive. That's all that matters."

There she was. So small compared to the others, but dead just like them. Just as decomposed.

Andrea and Lily spread the blanket over Sophia's small body.

"What did you do to make Daryl hit you? He's never hit anyone before. Especially not a woman." It was obvious she was trying to change the subject.

"Look, I pushed his buttons! Why is this such a big deal? We got in a fight and I pissed him off!"

"How?"

The knot caught in her throat. "Because I told him Sophia was dead...ok? I told him to stop looking for her because we'd almost died on the job and that pissed him off. I really got under his skin and paid the price."

"Sorry I asked."

"No, no. I needed to get it out. If I didn't, I'd have probably punched him again...Can you just give me the scythe from the barn so I can finish off these walkers to prepare them for the pit? I need to be kept busy."

"We should bury them," T-Dog said walking up.

"We need a service," Andrea said. "Carol would want that."

"Yeah, we all want that."

"Let's um-Let's dig a grave for Sophia, Annett and Shawn over by those trees." Lori added joining the slowly growing group. "And we'll need a truck to move the bodies."

"I'll get the keys," Jimmy offered.

"No, no," Shane stopped him. "I got the truck."

"And the others? That's a lot of digging. Especially you." He looked at Lily. "You are still recovering and I know Hershel would say you don't need to be working."

"Yes, I will keep that in mind but I can do some work. I'm not gonna just sit around and watch you work," Lily told him honestly and he knew there was nothing he could say to convince her otherwise.

"We bury the ones we love and burn the rest," Andrea informed Jimmy.

"Let's get to work."


	29. The Split

Sorry I haven't uploaded in so long. I was at camp and then at my friends house and playing portal but I'm back now. SOrry it took so long!

* * *

Lily looked up to see Daryl and Carol in the RV talking about something and looking beyond the RV saw Shane and Dale arguing about something.

'I'm so done with Shane. I just hope he doesn't do anything to hurt Dale.'

Andrea handed Lily the scythe from the barn and she went around making sure that all of the walkers were officially dead while the others brought the truck and dug the holes for the loved ones.

"That's it," T-Dog sighed wiping sweat from his brow. "Holes are dug."

"I'm get Carol now," Lori offered heading toward the RV. A few minutes later she emerged and Daryl came out shortly after.

Everyone gathered at the graves, but little was said other than 'You have been loved.' and 'You will be missed.' Once those few words were said people dispersed.

Andrea, Lily, and T-Dog all returned to collect the walkers from the barn.

Lily grabbed the feet as T-Dog grabbed the head of a walker and they made for the truck. When they got close, Andrea lifted the mid section to help toss it in the bed of the truck.

"A few more trips?" Rick asked walking to the drivers seat.

"We got lucky."

"This is lucky, Andrea?" Lily asked.

"If that barn had anymore, we could've been overrun."

T-Dog added. "Good thing Shane did what he did when he did."

"You can't tell me this was right," Dale asked.

"It wasn't," Rick added. "It'll cost us Hershel."

"He's grieving. He'll come around," Andrea said more to comfort herself than everyone else. "See we had no choice. Look, I shot too. This wasn't all Shane."

"Look, I got no qualms about it. Walkers in my backyard?"

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't have taken care of the problem. But creating a panic?!" Dale spoke to T-Dog.

"There's no point in arguing about it," Lori spoke up. "I's done. There's nothing we can do about it."

"Let's get a move on."

Lily accompanied Andrea and T-Dog to help dispose of the walkers. Nothing much happened other than an arm falling from the back of the truck.

The pit had just been lit when Glenn came sprinting to the three of them.

"Lily!" he shouted. "Lily! We need you."

"What for?"

"Beth! She just passed out. Come on!"

"Take me to her."

...

Beth's eyes were open as she lay on the bed. Maggie sat next to her clutching her hand.

"Lily, what's happened to her?"

Beth's forehead was normal temperature and she'd not suffered any traumas as far as she knew. "Has she hit her head recently?"

"No, she just fell in the kitchen."

Lily took her pulse which was normal. "I think she's just in shock."

"Well, what can we do?"

"Wait until she wakes up."

"What should we do then?"

"Give her a glass of water...She'll be fine."

"She don't look fine! Her eyes won't even close!"

Lily sighed and leaned forward to shut her eyes. "Closed."

"What the hell is wrong with you? You acting like you don't care!" Maggie was beginning to anger Lily.

Lily continued with a calm voice. "I care about Beth, but right now my mind is in other places. I'm doing all I can for her. All you can do is wait for her to recover. She's in shock, like the rest of you. Now please get off my back. Maybe Hershel cane help where I can't."

She walked outside to the porch where Rick was standing at his truck ready to go somewhere.

"What are you up to?" she asked him.

"Going into town to get Hershel."

"He's not here?"

"No, he's in town most likely. We're goin' to get him."

"What for?"

"Well, he's missing and Beth needs him. Say, how come you aren't helping with her?"

"Because I've done all I can do for her. Can I come?"

He looked frozen for a second. "You want to come to town with us?"

"Yes, please."

"Won't Daryl pitch a fit when he finds out you left without telling him?"

"I'm a grown woman. I can take care of myself. Besides, he's moved his stuff out of camp. He doesn't want anything to do with me anymore." She knew she'd made him mad, just didn't know she'd made him that mad. Now she had no place to stay. She could still feel where she had been hit and it made her stomach ache.

"He did what?"

"Look, he moved his things out of camp to an outer part of the farm. Somewhere we can't bother him. We had a falling out. I pissed him off and he left."

Rick heard the hurt in her voice and allowed her to accompany him and Glenn to get Hershel.


	30. The Girls

Alright, I am getting back into the swing of writing again so I will post as often as I can. Sorry for the wait.

y2j591: You know how much I love your reviews. They're awesome. It's what helps me write seriously.

Hope everyone won't be too mad at me for what I've got in store for Lily.

* * *

Glenn had been all tense on the ride to town and finally Lily asked from her seat between the two, "Hey, Glenn..."

"Yeah?" he asked nervously.

"What's eating you?"

"Maggie said she loves me. She doesn't mean it. I mean she can't. I mean-well... She's upset or confused. She's probably feeling, like-"

Lily couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"I think she's smart enough to know what she'd feeling."

"No. No."

Poor Glenn. He doesn't know how to deal with affection.

"No. You know what? She wants to be in love, so she's-she needs something to-to like hold onto."

"Glenn, it's pretty obvious to everyone Maggie loves you," Rick said. "And not just because you're one of the last men standing. So what's the problem?"

"Is it really that obvious?"

"Yeah," Lily laughed.

"I didn't say I love you back."

"Huh."

"I'be never had a woman say that to me before, except my mom, of course, and my sisters."

"But with Maggie, it's different. We barely know each other."

"It doesn't take much more than that if you know it's the right one."

"Oh that's so full of it, Lily. What does she really know about me? Nothing. We're practically strangers. But I-I didn't know what to do with it. I just stood there like a jerk."

"Hey, hey. This is a good thing, something we don't get enough of these days. Enjoy it. And when you get back, return the favor. It's not like she's going anywhere."

"Rick, I know about Lori. Her being pregnant. I got her those pills."

"I figured," Rick answered.

Lily kept to herself. Lori said nothing about being pregnant and she didn't say anything about trying to kill the baby. Then again, it's not like she was high on the must be informed list.

"Hey I'm sorry I kept it from you."

"Don't be. You did what you thought was right." Rick was surprisingly calm hearing that his wife had confided in a stranger rather than her own husband for something as important as this. "It just so happens it wasn't."

Lily slid out of the car and followed the two of them inside the bar with guns and knives raised.

None of them knew exactly what to expect. Hershel might have been dead and eaten by walkers. The bar could be full of walkers and he'd never been there at all. Or he could have still been at the farm with everyone but just tucked away. Regardless, Rick kicked open the door and Hershel was sitting at the bar with a drink in his hand.

"Hershel," Rick called from the other side of the bar.

"Who's with you?" Hershel asked.

"Glenn and Lily."

"Maggie and Daryl send them?"

"He volunteered. Actually they both did. They're both good like that." He walked over to the bar and leaned against it. "How many you had?"

"Not enough."

Rick looked over at the two of us standing in the middle of the room still waiting for a fight.

"Let's finish this up back at home. Beth collapsed, is in some sort of state. Must be in shock. I think you are too."

"That's the only explanation for what happened," Lily added. She only hoped that her insight would be enough to get Hershel to come home.

"Maggie's with her?" Hershel asked seeming to not have heard Lily at all.

"Yeah, but Beth needs you."

"What could I do? She needs her mother. Or rather to mourn, like she should have done weeks ago. I robbed her of that. I see that now."

"She needs you to be there beside her," Lily spoke. "Please, just come back with us. She needs you."

"You thought there was a cure. Can't blame yourself for holding out for hope."

"Hope? When I first saw you running across my field with your boy in your arms, I had little hope he would survive."

"But he did."

"He did. Even though we lost Otis. Your man Shane made it back and we saved your boy. That was the miracle that proved to me that miracles do exist. Only it was a sham, a bait and switch. I was a fool, Rick, and you people saw that." There was a tense silence before Hershel continued. "My daughters deserve better than that." He took a sip of liquor and poured himself some more.

...

Glenn and Lily migrated back to the front door and Rick joined them shortly.

"So what do we do? Wait for him to pass out?" Glenn asked.

"If we had some sleeping pills I could slip them into his drink," Lily offered.

"Just go!" Hershel boomed from the opposite side of the bar. "Just go!"

"I promised Maggie I'd bring you home safe."

The old man chuckled. "Like you promised that little girl?"

'Oh, he's gone too far. I don't care if he's dunk. I risked my life for that little girl and now he's all but thrown it in my face.' Glenn placed his hand on her shoulder to settle her nerves.

"So what's your plan?" Rick asked sounding testy. "Finish that bottle? Drink yourself to death and leave your girls alone?"

"Stop telling me how to care for my family, my farm," Hershel rose to his feet and faced Rick. "You people are like a plague! I do the christian thing, give you shelter, and you destroy it all!"

"The world was already in bad shape when we met."

"And you take no responsibility! You're supposed to be their leader!"

"Well, I'm here now, aren't I?!"

"Yes. Yes. Yes, you are."

"Now, come on. Your girls need you more than ever." Rick took Hershel's arm and he threw it off.

"I didn't want to believe you. You told me there was no cure. That these people were dead, not sick. I chose not to believe that. But when Shane shot Lou in the chest and she just kept coming, that's when I knew what an ass I'd been. That Annett had been dead long ago and I was feeding her rotten corpse! That's when I knew there was no hope. And when that little girl came out of the barn, the look on your face- I knew you knew it too. Right? There is no hope. And you know it now like I do. Don't you? There is no hope for any of us."

"How can you say that?" Lily asked shaking from the doorway. "If there's no hope then why haven't you thrown yourself at the walkers to let them eat you? Why are you still fighting?"

"That's doesn't matter anymore."

Lily could see there was no point in arguing anymore.

"Look, I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore," Rick snapped. "Cleaning up after you. You know what the truth is? Nothing has changed. Death is death. It's always been there. Whether it's from a heart attack, cancer, or a walker, what's the difference? You didn't think it was hopeless before, did you? Now there are people back at home trying to hang on. They need us, even if it's just to give them a reason to go on even if we don't believe it ourselves. You know what? This-this isn't about what we believe anymore. It's about them."

Hershel finished his drink and set the glass upside down saying he was ready to go home when the door opened. Two men walked inside the bar with guns in their hands.

"Son of a bitch. They're alive."

'Who the hell were these people?'


	31. The Boys

It's a long one.

* * *

The two strange men sat themselves down at the bar and poured themselves a drink. Glenn and Rick has moved Lily behind them away from the strange men because they did not hide the fact that they were interested in her.

"I'm Dave," the thinner of the men introduced themselves. "That scrawny-looking douce bag over there is Tony." Tony was not scrawny.

"Eat me, Dave."

"Hey, maybe some day I will. We met on !-95 coming out of Philly. Damn shit-show that was."

"I'm Glenn. It's nice to meet some new people."

"Rick Grimes."

"How 'bout you, pal. You have one?"

"I just quit."

"You've got a unique sense of timing, my friend."

Rick spoke for Hershel. "His names Hershel. He lost a lot of people today, a lot of them."

"I'm truly sorry to hear that. To better days and new friends. And to our dead. May they be in better place."

Lily remained silent.

"What's your name?" She was looking at the wall. "Hey, I'm talkin' to you."

"Mary," she lied. Glenn gave her a questioning look which made her kick his shin.

"My mom's name was Mary," Dave chuckled but he moved on quickly pulling out a gun. "Not bad, huh? Pulled it off a cop."

All eyes moved to Rick. "I'm a cop."

"This one was already dead."

Tony leaned around Hershel to look at Lily. Out of the corner of her eye she could see it and whispered in Glenn's ear. "Take my hand." The look on his face was one of confusion. "Take my hand, please." He inched his hand across the bar and took her hand in his. Tony's eyes lingered for a second longer before turning his attention back to Dave.

"You fellas are a long way from Philadelphia."

"It feels like we're a long way from anywhere."

"Well, what drove you south?"

"Well, I can tell you it wasn't the weather. I must've dropped thirty pounds in sweat along down here."

"I wish," Tony added.

"No. First it was D.C. I heard there might be some kind of refugee camp, but the roads were so jammed, we never even got close. We decided to get off the highways, into the sticks, keep haulin' ass. Ever y group we came across had a new rumor about a way out of this thing."

"One guy told us there was this coast guard sitting in the Gulf, sending ferries to the islands."

"Latest was a rail yard in Montgomery running trains to the middle of the country-Kansas, Nebraska."

"Nebraska?" Glenn asked. Lily clutched his hand tighter when the eyes traveled back to them. Rick gave her a subtle glance asking her what was going on and she nodded her head toward Tony. Rick nodded his understanding.

"Low population. Lots of guns," Tony continued, looking at Lily again.

"Kinda makes sense," Glenn sighed rubbing Lily's arm to calm her nerves.

'Nice touch. He should do fine with Maggie.'

"Ever been to Nebraska, kid? Either of you been? A reason they call them flyover states." There was a pause before Dave continued. "How about you guys?"

"Fort Benning, eventually."

"I hate to piss on your cornflakes, officer, but...we ran across a grunt who was stationed at Benning. He said the place was over run by lamebrains."

"Wait. Fort Benning is gone? Are you for real?"

"Sadly, I am. Oddly, there is no way out of this mess. Just keep going from one pipe dream to the next, praying on these mindless freaks doesn't grab a hold of you when you sleep."

"If you sleep," Tony added.

"Yeah, it doesn't look like you guys are hangin' your hats here. You holed up somewhere else?"

"Not really," Rick said.

"Those your cars out front?"

"Yeah, why?" Glenn asked.

"We've been livin' in ours. Those look kinda empty, clean. Where's all your gear?"

"We're with a larger group," Hershel said. "Out scouting, thought we could use a drink."

"A drink? Hershel, I thought you quit. Well, we're thinking about setting up around here. Is it-is it safe?"

Nervousness flooded through Lily and she clutched Glenn's hand tightly. These men wanted a place to stay and they were made her as nervous as facing a walker.

"It can be, although I have killed a couple of walkers around here."

"Walkers?" Dave asked smiling. "That what you call 'em?"

"Yeah."

"That's good. I like that. I like that better than lamebrains."

"More succinct," Tony added.

"Ok, Tony went to college."

"Two years." As if that was supposed to impress them.

"So what-so what, you guys set up on the outskirts or something? That new development?"

"Trailer park or something? A farm?"

Dave started to sing. "Old McDonald had a farm...You got a farm?"

Tony rose to his feet and lumbered over to a corner where he began to urinate on the floor. As he did he looked over at his shoulder at the group letting his eyes linger on Lily. He made her skin crawl.

"Is it safe?"

"It's gotta be. You got food, water?"

"You got more cooze? We ain't had a piece of ass in weeks." At that moment Glenn knew exactly why Lily made him take her hand. She knew the kind of people they were and didn't want to draw him in to get him hurt but to make them hopefully seem less of a target. She'd wanted to protect herself but felt guilty to drag Glenn into it. He understood that from the very beginning they were looking for a place to stay, but he didn't know what their plans were. They sounded like they were deliberately looking for someplace to pillage.

"Listen, pardon my friend here. City kids- they got no tact. No disrespect. So listen, Glenn-"

"We've said enough."

"Well, hang on a second. This farm-it sounds pretty sweet. Don't it sound sweet, Tony?"

"Yeah, real sweet."

"How about a little southern hospitality? We got some buddies back at camp, been having a real hard time. I don't see why you can't make room for a few more. We can pool our resources, our manpower."

"We have enough sick people to take care of on our own without having to add who knows how many to it," Lily lied.

"Look, I'm sorry. That's not an option," Rick aided her.

"Doesn't sound like it's be a problem," Dave pushed.

"I'm sorry we can't."

"We can't take in anymore. Like she said, too many already."

"You guys are something else. I thought, you know- I thought we were friends," Dave said. "We got people we gotta look out for too. Sounds like you know what you're doing, Mary." He gave her a smile that was supposed to be sweet. "You the doctor? You can help us."

"Couldn't help my sister." There was a pause as she let it sink in. "I'd probably just end up killing your men. More likely dead already anyway."

"Not nice."

"We don't know anything about you," Rick said.

"No, that's true. You don't know anything about us. You don't know what we've had to go through out there, the things we've had to do. I bet you've had to do some of those same things. Am I right?"

"Don't you pretend to know what we've been through," Lily said quietly.

"Ain't nobody's hands clean in what's left of this world. We're all the same." Lily wanted to tell them he was wrong, but Glenn saw this coming and stopped her. "So come on, let's-Let's take a nice friendly hayride to this farm and we'll all get to know each other."

"That's not gonna happen," Rick said flatly.

"Rick," Dave pleaded longingly.

"This is bullshit," Tony spat.

"Calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down! Don't ever tell me to calm down."

"Whoa."

"I'll shoot you three assholes in the head and take your damn farm!"

Glenn looked over at Lily and she was looking more shaken that usual. "It's ok," he whispered to her. What amazed her was that he was taking the fake relationship and making it look real and she was feeling extremely comforted by it.

Rick jumped up to kick Tony's butt but Dave stopped him.

"Whoa. Relax. Take it easy. Nobody's killing anybody. Nobody's shooting anybody. Right, Rick?"

They watched as Dave jumped over the bar counter. As Rick turned to watch him, Tony drew his gun. Lily flicked her knife open silently under the counter just to be ready.

"We're just friends having a drink. That's all," Dave said calmly putting his pistol on the counter. Yes, he set it down but he had it aimed right at Rick. "Now, where's the good stuff, huh? Good stuff. Good stuff. Good stuff. Let's see."

Glenn and Tony were having a stare down while Rick watched Dave search for the good stuff. Rick made to pull his gun and when Dave saw that, he grabbed whatever he could get his hand on.

"Ah, this oughta do it. You gotta understand, we can't stay out there. You know what it's like."

"Yeah, I do. But the farm is too crowded as it is. Too many sick and wounded. I'm sorry. You'll have to keep looking."

"Keep lookin'. Where do you suggest we do that?"

"I don't know. I hear Nebraska's nice."

Dave laughed. "Nebraska. This guy." He reached for the gun on the counter, but Rick saw it coming and drew his faster. Dave's blood stained the mirror behind the bar faster than Lily could blink. He then spun and shot Tony in the chest. He finished him off with a round to the head and the body thudded to the floor.

"You ok?" Lily asked Glenn when she saw how shaken up he was.

He turned to look her in the eyes and saw she was just as shaken. "You knew? About them?" He hugged her.

"It was a hunch. Thanks for helping with the act. You will do just fine with Maggie."

"You think?" he asked letting her go.

"Yeah. You don't need to be worried."


	32. The Shoot Out

Guest: Sorry, that happened in chapter 8. I got ahead of myself.

other Guest: Thanks for the review!

Ok readers, Lily is mine…the Walking Dead is not, but these next few chapters are mine.

* * *

"Hershel?" Rick asked to see if he was ok. He knew Glenn was ok because Lily had already checked. Hershel nodded that he was ok.

"Let's head back," he said. Lily cast her eyes up to the door and saw it was dark outside. Getting Hershel to come home had taken longer than she expected but at least they'd done it. Rick bent down to pick up the shotgun Tony had, then reached into his pockets to pull out the extra rounds.

Glenn walked over to Dave behind the bar and grabbed the pistol he carried. He also took the rounds in his pocket.

Glenn placed his hand on Lily's back because he could see she was still shaken by the events which had just taken place and escorted her to the door.

"Sorry for the short notice," Rick apologized to Lily.

"Nah, it's fine," she waved him off. "Glad you did it. We'd be dead if you didn't and I'd be stuck with them."

"I know what you mean."

"You know, before the world fell to pieces, I'd have been flattered to have a guy look at me that way. Now it just makes me want to puke."

"Strength in numbers. Here." He tossed her his gun keeping the one he got from Tony. "I never asked if you know how to use it. Do you?"

"Yeah. I may have missed your lesson, but I learned another way. Thanks."

"Don't know why we didn't arm you earlier. Sorry."

She was in the process of telling him she had a knife so she wasn't completely defenseless when a car engine approached the bar.

"Car. Car." Rick told them to crouch down. They threw themselves on either side of the door and heard not one car pull up, but two. People stepped out of the cars and began to approach the bar. Glenn rested his hand on her shoulder more trying to comfort himself than her, but she enjoyed the closeness regardless.

"Dave? Tony?" a man said. "They said over here?"

"I'm tellin' you, man, I heard shots."

"I saw roamers two streets over. Might be more around here."

"It's hot. We gotta get outta here."

The men walked up onto the porch and knocked on the door. "Dave? Tony?"

"Shut up, you idiot! You wanna attract 'em? Just stick close. We're gonna find 'em."

At least three different men were outside the bar stalking around.

One of the men walked off. "Dude, he said stay close."

Rick stood quietly and peered out the window.

"Why won't they leave?" Glenn whispered when the four of them huddled.

"Would you?" Hershel asked.

"We can't sit here any longer," Rick said. "Let's head out the back and make a run for the car."

They got up to run for the back when two shots filled the night air. They threw themselves against the wall again unable to reach the back door.

"What happened?" a man asked outside.

"Roamers, I nailed 'em."

"They disappeared, but their car's still here."

"I cleared that building. You guys get this one?"

"No."

"Me either."

"We're looking for Dave and Tony and no one checks the damn bar?"

Footsteps approached the entrance to the bar and Rick slid to the floor out of sight of the windows.

Rick cocks his gun and the door opens. Glenn threw himself in front f it slamming it closed. Lily had reached out for him and was trembling. 'What the hell? He's not dead.'

"Someone pushed it shut." The men spoke outside. "There's someone in there."

Lily covered her mouth for fear she was breathing too loud and Glenn reached out to her. 'It's going to be ok,' he mouthed to her.

"Yo, someone in there?" one of the men shouted at the bar. "Yo, if someone's in there, we don't want no trouble. We're just lookin' for our friends."

'Why did I come out here? This was so stupid. Now we're gonna die out here. What would Carl do with his father dead? What about Maggie and Beth? Maggie would lose her boyfriend and her father. And Daryl? He doesn't care. I'm better off without him.' She could have told herself that a million times and still never believed it.

"What do we do?" one asked quietly.

"Bum rush the door?"

"No, we don't know how may are there. Just relex." Louder. "We don't want any trouble. We're just looking for our friends. If something happened, tell us. This place is crawling with corpses. If you can help us not get killed, I'd appreciate it."

The groups silence split up the men to explore the bar and see who was inside.

Rick spoke. "They drew on us!" Hershel sighed with disappointment knowing something as going to go wrong.

"Dave and Tony in there? They alive?"

Lily watched the bead of sweat drip down his forehead as he continued to think about how to respond.

After thinking for a long time he said, "No."

"They killed Dave and Tony."

"Come on, man. Let's go."

"No. I ain't leavin'."

Lily locked eyes with Glenn pleading him to get Rick to stop talking. After her judgement on the previous situation, Glenn was going to trust her judgement, but that didn't mean Rick would.

"I'm not tellin' Jane. I'm not gonna go back and tell them that Dave and Tony got shot by some assholes in a bar."

"Your friends drew on us!" Rick shouted at them. "They gave us no choice!"

She took a deep breath to give herself courage. "Shut up!" Lily hissed at him. "Don't make it worse."

"I'm sure we all lost enough people. Done think we wish we didn't have to, but it's like that now. You know that! So let's just chalk this up to what it wa-wrong place, wrong-"

A bullet shattered the window above Glenn's head. Rick jumped to his feet and fired a shot out the window.

"Get outta here! Go!" Glenn took her hand and dragged Lily up making his way for the back door. A bullet shot past her head so she threw herself to the ground pulling Glenn with her.

Hershel slid the shotgun over to the two of them giving Glenn something to shoot with.

Silence.

"Hey!" Rick shouted. "We all know this is not gonna end well! There's nothing in it for any of us! You guys just-just back off, no one else gets hurt!"

Lily was beginning to become angry with Rick and she was forgetting her fear. "Rick," she hissed and he locked eyes with her. "You just shot their friends. What would you do if someone said they shot Lori or Glenn and said it was just an accident? You'd react well wouldn't you? We have to kill these men too. Don't you see that? That's the only way we're getting out of here. They aren't just gonna walk away!"

Bottles clinked together behind the bar, so Glenn ran to the back door and walked down the abnormally creaky stairs to investigate. Seconds later, a shot rang out.

"Glenn! Glenn!" Rick ran after him.

"I-I'm all right. I'm all right!" he shouted to them. Lily released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"I'll hold 'em here," Rick told Lily and Hershel. "Hershel, you cover Glenn. See if you can make it to your car. Tell him-tell him to pull up back. We'll run for it. Get the hell out of here."

'Now we're running. Great. If he'd just stayed silent there wouldn't be this problem...'

"You want me to cover Glenn?"

"You missed all that gun training. Could have come in handy now."

"Nah, I can shoot. I just don't like to."

Lily followed Hershel into the back room and watched as Glenn ran out into the alley to go get the car. A man jumped out and shot at Glenn. The second that man was down on the ground groaning in pain from being shot, Lily ran out after Glenn.

"You ok?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Not shot?"

He shook his head.

Rick joined them asking the same questions she had.

"It's all right. The car's right there. We're almost home. You good?"

"I'm good."

"I'm fast let me go for it," Lily offered.

"You sure?" Rick asked.

"Yeah, keys." She took the keys, a few deep breaths and ran for the car. Shots echoed behind her but he didn't stop. She couldn't.

The button to unlock the doors wasn't working so she had to run to the drivers side in the line of fire of the sniper on the roof. She jammed the key in the lock and heard tires scream behind her.

"Come on, man! We're leavin'!"

The two men shouted back and forth for a while before she heard. "Look! By their car!"

"Grab her! Go!" A car door opened and she looked behind her to see a man coming straight for her.

"Rick!" Lily screamed. Running back around the car. She didn't get far before the man grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back. "Rick!" She threw her head back and brought her foot up between his legs and was able to pull herself free, but somebody else grabbed her.

Next thing she knew, she was thrown into a vehicle. Someone crawled in next to her and the car took off before he could close the door. She punched him in the face so hard she heard his nose break. Moving faster than she'd ever moved before in her life, she jumped from the other car door and threw herself to the ground.

"Shit, man! We lost her!" one of them shouted as the car sped off.

"We have to keep going."

She launched to her feet and made for the bar.

"Lily!" Glenn screamed looking for her.

"Glenn!" she returned the call.

Another car skidded to a stop right in front of her. There was no time for her to turn around because the door opened and a man shot out after her. She was grabbed and dragged in the car.

"Glenn!" she shrieked.

"Shut up, bitch!" the man shouted clapping a hand over her mouth as the car sped off.

"Lily!" Rick shouted from the bar. "Lily!"

She watched from the windows as Rick chased down the car for as long as possible then he, Glenn, and Hershel faded into the night, most likely for the last time.


	33. The Chase

Lily is my OC.

Warning: This might be a trigger chapter to some readers.

* * *

She fought the whole car ride trying to free herself but there was another man in the front seat who crawled back and helped contain her.

A hand snaked its way up her side before being slapped away. "Save it, man!"

"Get your hands off me!"

"Blind her!" ordered the person driving.

"Hold her still!"

"I'm tryin'!"

One of them grabbed her arms and pulled her back as the other one tied something over her eyes.

She was able to pull an arm free and rip the cloth from her eyes before it was pulled around her back again.

"Hey, I got an idea," the man said who had crawled from the front seat.

"Like hell!" Lily shouted kicking him in the head. His head flew back so fast and with so much force that when it hit the back window, a small crack appeared.

Clutching the back of his head he drew his knife and held it to her face. "Try that one more time!" Again she curled her leg toward her to send it shooting at his chest, but he grabbed it and through much struggling forced it under his own legs.

With the knife in hand he situated himself on top of her legs pinning her down.

"Whore," he hissed drawing his knife down her leg. The pain shooting through her thigh caused her to cry out in pain and thrash her legs but the man sitting on top of them held them down. Again the knife trailed down her leg right over the open wound causing her to scream out again.

The man behind her threw his hand over her mouth muffling any more cries she could muster.

"Don't ever do that again," the man said too calmly. His blue shirt grew a red spot when the man wiped his knife on it before sliding the knife back into his pocket.

"Like I was sayin'..." He cast a glance over her shoulder. "I have this thing for scarves...Not them shitty ones but the nice ones man."

"Tell me more," the man behind her purred. Lily froze with horror at what was happening before her.

"Now I used to hit it off regularly in the old days..." This comment got approval from the two other men in the vehicle. "So this car is full of scarves. I propose we take a few minutes to have a little fun before we go back to camp."

The vehicle made a sudden stop and the trunk unlocked. Laughter of approval followed as Lily began to fight and was moved to the large trunk where the four of them could fit snugly.

The man in the blue shirt drew a bandana from his pocket and crammed it down her throat to start the ordeal. While the man behind her held her arms, the driver pinned her legs grabbing one of the dozens of scarves tucked away in the back to tie her knees together. Once that was done, he took another scarf and bound her ankles. The blue shirted man held her arms as the second man bound her wrists tightly in place.

"Now, for the best part," blue shirt smiled bunching up one of the scarves. "Open wide, cupcake."

Her mouth was forced open and the bandana was removed allowing room for the scarf to be crammed in against her struggles and held tightly in place. He kept his hand over her mouth so she couldn't spit it out and took his sweet time preparing the last scarf making sure he had it just right. Forcing her head back, he placed the scarf between her lips making sure everything would stay in its proper place keeping her silent before tying it tightly.

"That should keep the walkers away." The three of them laughed menacingly. "Don't worry. We'll have more fun later."

She lunged for him but the man holding her arms gripped her tighter.

"Oh, I've got something," the driver said drawing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.

"You got the keys?"

"Nope."

There was a moment of silence before the blue shirted man smiled. "Throw them on her."

She felt the cuffs tighten around the silken scarf over her wrists and complete terror took over. 'I'm not going to survive this.'

Through their laughter she heard tires on pavement. It took her a minute to register that their car was not moving. Where was the noise coming from? She opened her eyes and sat up looking out the back and saw headlights emerging from the dark. The vehicle screeched around a corner and the four of them saw the men they had just ditched at the bar. Joy flooded through her when she saw Rick with his head poking out of the sunroof of the car aiming at them.

"Shit! Start the car!"

"Oh, man!"

A gunshot rang out through the air landing very near the car trunk.

Two of them ran for the front to start the car as the third stayed in the back with her. She kicked her legs using the bottom of the trunk to slide the scarves off. Both of them lurched when the vehicle started and Lily used that moment to throw her head back into her captors and his smacked against the window.

Using his dizziness, she wiggled to the open trunk to throw herself out, but the man grabbed her arm and reached up to slam the trunk closed.

More shots echoed through the night as the cars chased each other. Many violent turns were taken as shots were fired at the tires of the car. One of them hit and the car lurched to the side right before it leaped over a hill sending its passengers airborne.

She could see the back lights turn off signaling that the driver had turned off the headlights.

'No. Don't turn off the lights,' she thought, but Rick, Glenn, and Hershel were right behind them with their brights shining brilliantly across the get away car.

Lily remained to fight and would until someone came to get her, but her struggles were cut short when she was knocked on the head.


	34. The First Night

y2j591: I won't leave you hanging!

Lily is my OC.

Warning: This might be a trigger chapter to one readers.

* * *

The air was cold when she woke. Something soft was beneath her. It was a mattress. When she tried to reach out her hands she realized that they were still bound behind her back. The scarf was still in her mouth and more had been added to her legs.

After minutes of struggling she forced her hands under her butt and in front of her where she took the scarfs from her mouth and untied her legs. The handcuffs had been tightened in the process of coming under her butt and were beginning to ache. As she removed the scarves from her legs, she felt all the blood on her jeans from where she'd been cut.

The scarves were all she had so she bunched up a few and placed them against the hole in her pants and tied them down.

Once that was done, she thought about feeling her way around the room to see where she was, but by the feel of the mattress, she knew that was all there was. There was no bed, just the mattress in the cold room and she had a feeling she'd know the room eventually.

Men would be poring in soon enough and she'd have to fend them off, but she'd worry about that when the time came.

...

Somehow she'd fallen asleep in the corner of the room as far from the door as possible when she heard a thunk outside the door that woke her. A moment passed before the door opened and two men stepped inside. One of the men was tall, sturdily built and had a bandage on his nose. It was the man whose nose she broke. The second man was shorter than the first and his shoulders slumped down almost in a hunch. She'd kicked him in the head.

The smaller one turned and locked the door behind him before joining his taller friend with the broken nose.

"You broke my nose bitch!" he spat.

"And I could have ended up with a concussion!"

She rose to her feet clenching her hands together.

"I think it's time for some revenge...What do you say?"

"I agree."

"Don't touch me," she hissed like a wild animal.

"Oh, we will! Again and again. So get ready!"

A scream pierced the air as she charged the men throwing her cupped hands into the broken nose and elbowing the other man in the face making her way for the door. She fumbled with the lock but it wouldn't budge. A huge arm wrapped around her midsection violently dragging her from the door. She screamed and a hand clamped down over her mouth.

She was dragged over to the mattress where the small man waited with a roll of duct tape. Trying to kick it from his hands earned her a slap across the face.

The smaller man took her hands in his and proceeded to swaddle them in tape almost up to her elbows. Broken nose took something from his pocket. When he pulled his hand away, she screamed for help but he jammed it in her mouth to silence her. Tape was then layered over her mouth before her arms were pressed to her chest and tape was wrapped around to pin her arms and hands down while her legs remained untouched.

She kicked as hard as she could when her legs were free but they weren't free often and her kicking usually resulted in getting punched, but she wasn't going to give in.

There was no telling when rescue would come but it would. Rick would never give up on finding someone until they were found. 'Don't take long, please,' she thought as the small man slapped her again for kicking him. 'Find me before there's nothing to be found. Please.'

After wishing the men would be nearing their end and leave her alone, broken nose ripped off her pants. A muffled cry filled their ears as broken nose threw himself on her.

The door slammed open and the lock shattered.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

Both men jumped off her immediately avoiding eye contact with this man adjusting their pants the whole time. He must have been extremely high in power for these men to jump so greatly. Lily curled into a ball trying to shield herself from everything around her.

"What the fuck is going on here?!"

"We picked 'er up on a run," small guy said.

"Yeah, after she killed three of ours," broken nose said.

"Three?" the large man asked crossing his arms casting a strong look at broken nose then looking down at Lily on the mattress. "And you were going to tell me when? After you had your fun?"

The two men cast each other a look before the man spoke.

"Get out," he said calmly. They didn't move. "Get the fuck out!" The two men were practically falling over each other to leave the room.

"Man," the person in charge sighed taking a step closer to her on the mattress. "There's one of my men unconscious in the hallway outside the door...this door. And what do I find behind that door but two of my men and you...Can't say it's not tempting, but now is not the time..."

When he stooped down to her level she was backed up against the wall, pantless, bloody from the cuts on her leg and face, and bruising all up and down her arms and appearing on her face. Her shoulder ached from where she'd been shot, but she was glad she still had her shirt to herself to cover it.

"Come here," he called soothingly. She remained curled in a ball but she heard his knife flicked open severing the tape around her chest and wrists. He pulled the tape from her face allowing her to pull the rag from her mouth.

"There'll be a guard at all times at this door. You can't get out."


	35. The Helper

Nellie: Woe. Thanks. You've got me speechless.

Lily is my OC.

Warning: This may be a trigger chapter for some readers.

* * *

It had taken hours for her to find sleep and the second she did, loud noises woke her. Men were cheering somewhere above her. They continued to talk for another hour or so before everything got quiet. Hopefully they were passed out and she'd be left alone.

While she couldn't sleep she decided to mess with the handcuffs. Scraping them on the rock floor was not going to help but that was all she had so she continued.

Someone was walking in the hall outside. She threw herself back onto the mattress in the room and looked up at the mirror on the wall so she could see who entered.

The door opened to the room where she'd been and a small man crawled inside. Not the one she'd kicked in the head but someone even smaller, just barely taller than she was. Lily pretended to still be asleep when she heard him approach, but when the hand touched her back she responded quickly jumping into action. She grabbed his arm and threw him into the wall.

"Hey," he cried more shocked than anything. "I'm trying to help you."

"What?" she asked standing as defensively as she could with her hands constricted and bloody.

"I'm gonna get you outta here."

His green eyes were soft when he spoke making her want to trust him, but she was hesitant and reasonably so. This scenario was too good to be true and he was beautiful to top it off. It was the cliche rescue. The damsel in distress and the handsome knight in shining armor. His light brown almost sandy blonde hair shone in the dim light from the open door and was flipped to the side. He possessed the surfer look that had always caught her attention when the world was still alive. He was most certainly not Daryl but he had that face that one could not help but want to trust.

"My name's Stuart," he introduced himself.

"Lily," she said hesitantly and cautiously. A soft smile spread across his face showing her his freckles.

"Please let me help you."

"Why?"

"This is wrong. This whole situation is wrong. Please, come with me but we have to go now." He held out his hand to her. "Come on. The guy in charge is asleep now and we have to hurry. This is the only time I can help you."

One thing she had noticed was that this man had not been looking at her and she was in a tank top and underwear. "I need clothes."

"They are outside the camp hidden where you can change without anybody watching you."

"The cuffs?"

"I don't have a key. There isn't one. We have to go."

"Get me outta here."

"Come on." He took her hand and began to drag her through the halls. "We have to go now. The Boss is asleep."

'Boss? Not even gonna ask.'

"This place is big so stay close or you will get lost," he whispered.

The complex was dark as she followed Stuart.

"This way." His hand was warm in hers. It was at that moment she realized how much she missed the warmth of Daryl's hand on her back when he was ushering her around the farm or patting her face.

"Over here," Stuart called her. He'd run down a hall ahead of her as she zoned out thinking about Daryl. She ran quickly over to him and they sprinted across the intersection.

This complex was gigantic and underground she could tell. It was a giant maze and she was happy to know that there was someone with her that knew the way out.

"This way," he said leaning around the corner. He was about to pull her out when someone walked by. Stuart jumped back into the hall, pushed her into a corner throwing his hands on either side of her head to shield her with his own body.

His smile was sweet when he looked down at her as the man passed by.

"That was close," he whispered standing a little too close for comfort. She gave him a small smile to be kind. After all, this man was getting her out.

"He's gone." He took her hand again.

She followed him for another fifteen minutes before she began to get doubtful. This man wasn't helping her he was leading her on.

"Where are we going?"

"We're getting out of here."

"We've been running around for almost half an hour. There is no way in hell that this camp is that big without holes for walkers to get in."

He turned to face her and took her shoulders. "I've had to lead you around in circles because someone was always at the door, but we're close now you have to trust me."

"Then get me out of here," she hissed.

"Five more minutes, I promise."

For a few more minutes he lead her around before they reached the door.

She sighed with relief upon seeing the open door and made for it. Only a few steps were taken before she felt something on her arm.

"Is the coast clear?" Looking from side to side the coast was clear and she felt the hand on her back which urged her forward.

"Wait!" Stuart took her arm. "There's glass by the door."

"Why?"

"To keep living things out like wolves and coyotes."

'Or keep living things in,' Lily thought to herself. "How do I get out?"

"May I?" He gestured to carry her out of the compound in his arms. She nodded and he lifted her up.

Ten steps away the door was calling her. It stood there with open arms waiting to embrace her. The floor made crunching sounds, no doubt the glass. There it was, the door, and five steps before she reached it, it slammed closed.

Laughter filled her ears. It belonged to Stuart. She looked up at him and his eyes were smiling maliciously.

"You were so willing to escape you trusted a complete stranger."

"The last time I did that, I was rescued from a complete hell." In her head she thought that where Daryl had found her was not so bad compared to this place. She'd never been so right.

"Well, you did wrong." He placed her down on the ground on one of the stray shards. The step he took towards her made her take a step back into tinier pieces of glass.

She tried not to let her pain or disappointment show. "I can see that." She took another step back when he moved toward her.

'I'm cornered!'

"So while you're out here in the open with us, let's have a little fun..." A light clicked on above him shedding an orange glow over the room. She was completely surrounded. No less than twenty men filled the visible wall space all with smiles on their faces and more were leaning in the doors to catch a glimpse of her. Her heart fell.

"Please, forgive me," he said mockingly. "But there's something I must do before you're turned loose." He lunged for her and wrapped his hands around her neck pulling her in for a kiss. She bit his lip drawing blood getting her slapped into the glass.

"Not as sweet as I was expecting."

He took one final step towards her and she stepped back into the arms of a waiting spectator.


	36. The Dress

r2j591: I believe this is what you were looking for earlier…The point for throwing Stuart into the mix was to show how bad of a place she was in. Stuart is actually based off someone I know in real life. He's gorgeous and looks practically the same, but he's the real gentleman. Off note, he actually carried my books home for me once. But the reason I put him in here at all is because I promised him I'd put him in a video game so it's practice.

My plan was to waits between updates regarding the compound but it's so hard to wait seeing as I have it already written! So here you go! I can't wait any longer!

Lily belongs to me because she is my OC. The rest does not belong to me.

Warning: This may be a trigger chapter to some readers.

* * *

The room was dark when she finally dared to think again. All that she could remember was screaming and those men all shouting for a turn. She was the lamb the wolves fought for yet somehow she was still alive to remember it. At that thought she began to cry. Her clothes were gone leaving her cold, naked, bruised, and bloody from being beaten against the ground and the handcuffs hurt more than anything.

She took the sheet from the mattress on the floor and wrapped it around herself to at least make her feel less exposed.

She was still in disbelief that Stuart had been a lie. What affected her more than anything was the fact that if they'd met in the real world and he asked her out, she would have said yes. When the world fall apart, it seemed most chivalry with it.

The large boots echoed off the walls as the leader walked down to her room. She was curled in the corner when he entered. In his hands he held an axe and a small bundle. At this point she was more than willing to accept death as long as she'd be free from this hell.

"Hold out your hands," he said after placing the small bundle on the ground. She refused to look at him. "Place your hands out. Please."

"Why?"

"I'm going to break the handcuffs."

"You're going to what?" Her voice was nervous and her body showed it too as she held her hands to her chest.

"There's not a damn key in this place and how else can you get dressed if your hands are tied."

"Dressed in what? A mattress?"

He exhaled slowly. "I brought you clothes. You have five minutes once I remove the cuffs to change. Do I make myself clear?"

She was too scared to refuse the serious tone in his voice.

"Hold out your hands."

Reluctantly, she held out her hands and closed her eyes. The axe was raised in the air and came down with a loud clang. His aim had been true. As she pulled her hands to her chest, he tossed her the dress.

'My hands. I'm so glad he missed my hands.'

"Five minutes."

'Why is he making me change? Where will I be going? Am I safe? Is help coming?'

She changed and waited for him to come back in. At exactly two and a half minutes he knocked telling her she had two and a half minutes left to change. At five minutes he opened the door and pulled her to her feet. Slowly he blindfolded her and then proceeded to lead her through the compound. After the incident with Stuart it was possible she might have known how to get out, so he wasn't taking any chances.

After last nights events, it was harder than usual to walk but she had to show that these men were not going to break her so easily.

"Where are you taking me?" she dared to ask.

"Somewhere different. Now move."

He led her to a room where he removed the blindfold and she saw a table was set up with a single plate of food and a candle in the center.

"Sit down."

There was no telling what could happen if she didn't follow his orders, so she sat opposite the food. Seeing the food made her realize that she hadn't eaten in days and her stomach longed for food while her back ached for medication.

"As you can see, you do not have food." There was a pause. "Aren't you going to ask why?"

'What was he playing at?' "Why?"

"To answer your question, I need to know something about you. Are you right handed?"

She inhaled slowly. "No, I am left handed."

"Knew it," he said not meeting her eyes and instead taking a bite of the rice on his place.

"If you are to dine with me, you must have proper table manners and proper table manners cannot be learned overnight. Being left handed means you do not know how to use the silverware properly in your right hand, therefore it is just easier to feed you. Here." He took a forkful of rice and offered it to her. Hesitantly, she leaned in and took it.

She was so worried about what was in the food that she didn't even taste it. She sat wringing her hands in her lap as the leader of these men sat before her perfectly fine with her presence.

The tense dinner passed that way for at least half an hour. By that point he was done eating and had given her only a bite or so more. He took the napkin from his lap and dabbed the sides of his mouth before placing it down next to his empty plate.

"Come." She took his outstretched hand and he pulled her to her feet.

His steps walked around her as she clutched her elbows to feel secure.

"Lower you arms," he ordered.

With much nervousness, she lowered her arms and stood there as he examined her slowly drinking in every detail of her appearance. Lightly, so lightly she jumped, he placed his hands on her shoulders, sliding the soft fabric away to reveal her bare shoulders.

With giant hands he clutched her upper arms leaning in deeply to smell her neck before placing a series of kisses which made her skin crawl.

The dress fell to her waist leaving her exposed. She wrapped her arms around her chest, but the second she did, the leader threw her into the wall and pinned her arms down so he could examine her.

"Don't you dare hide anything from me," he spoke softly in almost a hiss.

She closed her eyes as his lips ran down to her stomach, but when his teeth sank into her chest she gave a cry of pain. The warmth of her blood running down her chest made her want to cry.

He didn't even say anything after he bit her which made the whole situation scarier. The silence was deafening as he continued to take what he wanted from her.

All of her other senses had gone numb in the hope of blocking him out. The smell of booze on his breath. The way his hands essentially covered her shoulders and chest. The moans of pleasure he derived from what she could give him.

"Yeah, you'll do," he whispered in her ear. "I'll keep you."

As if on que there was shouting and gunfire from elsewhere in the compound. Lily's head shot up in hope that this was her chance to escape.

"You make one noise, you die," he hissed. The thought disgusted her, but from how happy she'd just made him, he was not going to kill her.

"Down here!" she shrieked.

He threw her against the wall, distracting her just long enough to grab the tape that had been hidden under the table.

"Don't you dare touch me!"

He bound her arms behind her back and taped her mouth shut. He grabbed her throat and forced her head up as he wrapped the tape around her head no less than six times. Loud footsteps echoed off the walls outside the room. The leader grabbed her and dragged her under the desk with him thrusting the knife to her throat. There was no way she was going to shout because she could feel the blood running down her neck. She found it hard to breathe.

The footsteps slowed near the door before it was kicked open with a loud bang.

"Anybody there?!"


	37. The Lost and Found

Lily is my OC and she is most definitely there. Walking Dead is not.

Warning: Just to be careful, this may be a trigger chapter to some readers.

* * *

"Anybody there?"

It was Shane. There could only be one reason that he was hear. He knew that she was here and was here with others to bring her home.

The leader placed his large hand over her mouth, essentially silencing any cries she could muster, then he pinched her nose. She couldn't breathe. 'What's he doing?! I can't breathe! I'm going to pass out! That is if he doesn't kill me first.'

Lily was pushed up against the back of the desk close enough to the floor so she could stick her fingers out from under it. 'Concentrate on getting his attention!' she forced herself to think. Shane was still in the room because his footsteps had not retreated. Silently, he'd made his way over to the desk and touched her fingers making her jump.

She pulled her fingers from his desperately trying to take a breath and pointed to where the leaders head was.

"Cover your ears," Shane said, not caring if the leader heard him or not. A second later, a shot rang through the room.

She screamed deafened by the shot. The man slumped against her under the desk pinning her there forcing what little air she could get from her lungs.

"Lily! That you?"

"Mm-hmm!"

He ran around the desk and pulled her out by her feet.

"Damn you look awful." Her dress hung around her waist leaving her bare chested and bleeding standing in front of the man she hated most bound with duct tape. She took a deep breath trying to clear her head and ran.

"Son of a bitch!" he hissed running after her. "Get back here!"

She desperately looked for anything that looked familiar hopefully to lead her out of this hell.

"Lily! Come back here!" He did not sound like he wanted to kill her just to find her, but once she was found there was no telling what he'd do.

Around every corner, she ran into darkness hoping for outside. She ran and saw someone standing in the middle of the hallway. They spun to face her and a twang echoed through the air. Her dress snagged on something causing her to trip and slide along the ground keeping her pinned to the wall. With force she did not know she possessed, she tore from the wall ripping the dress free.

Shane was barreling towards her down the hall at an astonishing speed. She flattened herself against the wall and held out her foot, sending Shane soaring through the air where he face planted the ground. Once he was down, she sprinted down the same hall away from the man who shot at her.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" a younger sounding man shouted when she ran into his line of sight. "Guys! I've got her!" He took her waist, but she stomped on his foot causing him to groan in pain and release her. On her sprint from him, there was yet another man who had seen her trying to escape and as she ran, he used that momentum to throw her over his shoulder. When she hung upside down a very muffled gasp could be heard.

She kicked and kicked but he held her legs down. 'Just let me go!'

"Hey, she's in here! Come help me with her," the man who now held her over his shoulder called the one who she had stepped on.

She was lowered to the ground, and the second her feet hit the ground, she made to run, but the men knew she would and prepared for it. As hard as she could she fought, but they held on.

As she fought, a third man entered the room and a gunshot followed silencing everyone. Out of instinct, Lily curled up and dropped to the floor.

"What the fuck is goin' on here?"

"We found her."

Footsteps approached her on the ground and hands lifted her face up. "Oh, my God. You're alive."

She dared to open her tear filled eyes and saw bright blue ones looking back at her.

"You're alive," he repeated.

She heaved a great sigh upon seeing him smile at her. 'There was no way he was here right now. I'd been forgotten. There was no way they found me. How did they find me?'

"Lily, don't move. I'm gonna get you outta this." He cast his eyes to the others in the room. "Could ya step out?" They left the two alone in the room. He lifted her dress as much as he could with the tear.

She closed her eyes and heard a knife flick open which made her jump. He placed his hand on her cheek. "Don't move."

He set the knife on the ground as he began to peel the many layers of tape from her face. Gently he cut the tape on her cheek and began to peel the tape from her hair. Quiet whimpers could be heard as the tape came away from her hair. It was just too much of a mess and he had to cut her hair off at some points. It was a full ten minutes before he made his way to her mouth. "I am so sorry about this." Taking a slow inhale, he began to pull it from her mouth gently, just praying to God he wasn't hurting her.

The second it was gone he took her face in his hands as she let out a small cry.

He cut the tape from her arms swiftly to see the bloody handcuffs, then wrapped his jacket around her shoulders. How she longed to touch him but she was afraid he would push her away so she kept to herself as she cried.

"It's ok," he whispered taking her in his arms. She clutched his vest sobbing. "It's over."

"Bitch tripped me," Shane snapped walking into the room. Daryl pulled her out of reach of Shane and into his arms. Lily looked up and saw blood running down his face from the fall.

"You've done enough. Get out of here." Shane stomped out of the room to join the others who had come.

In his mind, Daryl saw the flash of skin when she rounded the corner and he fired fearing it was a straggler who they had missed. Thankfully he missed and just snagged the dress. As she pulled herself free, he could see her peppered with bruises and blood dripping down her chest and neck. She looked like a wild animal but she was still alive and Shane was after her. He reminded himself that she was going to be all right.

"Daryl?"

"Yeah," he laughed with relief. "I never meant to hit ya. I'm so sorry. Imma never forgive myself for hittin' ya. I'm not like that. I'm not gonna be like my old man. I'm not gonna be my old man."

A sob racked her body as she reached a shaky hand up to touch his face. "You came. You came. I'm sorry I punched you...twice."

"Shh. It's nothin'."

"You came."

"Hell yeah, I came. I ain't gonna leave ya. It's ok. You're safe now. We're gonna get ya outta here."

She cast her eyes down to the floor. "Hey, you don't wanna see what we did ta the place." He kept her gaze on him instead of letting it drift down to the body on the floor.

Tears ran down her face as she tried to fight against them but he understood them.

"No, you don't. You don't need to see them dead. We made sure they suffered. They already suffered. You need ta close your eyes or we ain't leavin'."

She wanted to see the men who hurt her dead, but she wanted to leave more. He lifted her in his arms.

"Jus close your eyes and we'll leave. It'll become a bad memory. That's all."

Her eyes closed and she held onto him tighter. "Don't stop talking," she said around the knot in her throat. "How did you find me?"

"The group came back to the farm with this kid named Randall, he's still there, but he told us that these guys moved around every week or so. We had to weasel the information out of him before they moved, and he gave us this general area..." He readjusted his grip holding her closer as she silently cried. "You hafta understand we got here as fast as we could. If we coulda got here faster then-then..."

"I understand," she sobbed.

Voices reached their ears from a distance.

"In here!" Daryl shouted to them. Lily lifted her head. "Keep your eyes closed." She settled her head back down in the crook of his neck.

"Oh, my God, I can't believe we found her!" Glenn cheered.

"Is she ok?"

"No, Rick. She ain't ok." He readjusted her again. "Now move."

"Where was she?"

A sob filled her chest. "It matter?" Daryl turned to face them. "She's alive and they ain't. That's it. Let's get the hell outta here. Ok?"

"This way!"

"You got her?" That voice she'd recognize anywhere not out of affection but out of fear.

Shane. He wouldn't leave her. She looked up and saw a man with a knife through his head stuck to the wall. His eyes were open and there was blood dripping from his open mouth. A cry of shock came from her mouth. Daryl moved his hand up to push her head back into his shoulder.

"Get us outta here!" Daryl shouted. "Now!"

The pair was ushered out of the compound where the camp of cannibals called home.

"Look at me. Look at me." Daryl told her after setting her on a car seat.

He wiped the blood and tears from her face as she refused to open her eyes.

"Shane, you got a handcuff key?" Daryl asked him as he examined the cuffs on Lily's wrists. "We hafta get these off ya before you get anything else in these open wounds."

"Yeah, I think so." Shane rummaged through his pockets for a minute before pulling out a small silver key.

'After all these months how did he still have it?'

The cuffs were not coming off easily. They had become so embedded in her wrists that the cuffs had become stuck. The silk had bonded with the blood and dried to the metal forming one giant scab. It would be painful to remove them to say the least.

She couldn't tear her eyes from the bloody mess that her wrists had become. The handcuffs had been too tight and she couldn't break them. All she could do was suffer through the pain.

"Lily, I need ya to look at me," Daryl whispered angling her gaze to meet his. "Keep lookin' at my face and don't look away. Promise?"

She nodded. Promise? Was she a child? The last time he made her promise something, he was drunk. Did he remember everything he told her and never said anything? It was so childish but meant so much.

He held her gaze with his blue eyes while he felt around her wrists using his hands to search for the lock. But he had to break the gaze to find the keyhole. Once the keyhole had been located, he locked eyes with her again.

"I'm really sorry about this," he whispered.

The key clicked into place. His hands closed around her wrists. Warm lips pressed against her forehead. Her mouth fell open in shock. The handcuffs snapped away from her wrists. A scream of pain filled the night. Hands closed around her wrists again to staunch the blood.

"Keep her quiet!" Shane hissed. "She's gonna bring every walker down on us."

"Shut the hell up, man!" Glenn snapped at him. "Leave her alone. You already scared her once tonight."

"Come on, man!" Daryl shouted urgently to Glenn who ran over with a bottle of water.

Lily never saw Glenn approach because Daryl pulled her head roughly to his and kissed her forcefully making the bruises on her face scream in agony. Daryl wrapped both of his hands around her neck pulling her as close to him as possible as Glenn dumped the water all over her wrists to clean them briefly. His kiss muffled the sounds her cries of pain.

Tears began to flow from the stinging the water had upon her wrists as Daryl tied his bandana over one of them. She'd bent over into the fetal position hoping the pain would lessen, but it didn't.

"It's over! It's over! It's over."

Daryl adjusted himself in the backseat pulling Lily into his lap letting her cry as he wrapped her other wrist up in his shirt.

"It's ok," he whispered in her ear as he ran his hand along her head in a soothing motion. His huge hand slid under her hair taking her neck letting his thumb rest on the side of her face as he kissed her forehead again.

"Nothin's gonna happen to ya. It's over. You're so strong. You're so strong. Jus' hang in there."

"Don't leave me," she spoke weakly.

"I'll never leave you again," he said seriously and she felt safe. She'd felt safer than she'd ever felt and knew she would be.

"You are never leaving the house without us," Rick said to them.

"She's never leaving the house again!"

The drive back to the farm was mostly in silence.


	38. The Recovery

Sorry guys, this ones short. I also want to mention that my friend had a story stolen so please don't take mine. I know what I've written is rough but seriously, I worked hard on this and if someone was to take it, I'd probably cry.

Lily is my OC. Walking Dead does not belong to me.

* * *

When Lily woke Daryl was asleep next to her snoring lightly. His legs were crossed and he still wore his boots which made her chuckle. One of his hands rested on his stomach and the other was propped on her head.

She crawled over to him where she leaned her head on his shoulder and rested her hand across his chest to see the IV protruding from her hand. To her surprise, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her over completely.

"What's this for?" he asked without opening his eyes.

"For not leaving me."

"I'm never leaving you." He kissed her forehead before resting his head on hers.

His hands were warm on her back and he slipped then under the fabric of her shirt. As soon as he did, she remembered how it would look and cringed.

"What happened?" he asked sitting up forcing the back of her shirt up so he could see the horror that was beneath.

"Someone pretended to lead me out of the camp, but they tricked me. He was nothing more than the pretty face to bait me. The floor by the entrance is rough to be purposefully painful to those without shoes. They sprinkled glass on the floor."

"Come on. This needs to be looked at." He scooped her into his arms carrying her downstairs against her pleas. "Hershel!" he shouted loudly. "Hershel!"

"I'm here. What do you need?" the kind old man asked stepping out of the kitchen.

"Her back...It's been ripped to shreds. There's blood all over the sheets that I didn't see 'til jus' now..."

"Let me see."

Daryl placed her on the dining room table before lifting her shirt to show the vet what needed to be addressed.

"Bring her to the office."

Daryl lifted her again before following Hershel to the operating table and set her down again. She was sitting so Hershel could operate from one side of the long end of the table and Daryl could hold her from the other side.

"The shirt has to go."

"I can't," Lily begged weakly. The rest of her body hurt so much that she couldn't feel the pain in her back anymore. "Don't. Please."

Daryl pulled her shirt off against her protests and pulled her to him pinning her arms between their chests so she couldn't punch him or try to knock the tools from Hershel's hands.

"Just do it," Daryl told Hershel through a pained voice. "Just get it done."

The second the cotton ball touched her back she arched her back and what came after was almost worse than a scream. She tried to hide how much pain she was in through gritting her teeth and clutching his vest. Daryl wrapped a muscular arm around her shoulders to keep her against him and used the other to bury her face in his chest.

By the way he held onto her, she knew his eyes had to be closed. She'd been through so much that if he opened his eyes she'd become more embarrassed than she already was and he didn't want her to suffer anymore, but if she wasn't healed she could get sick and die. She'd die and that would kill him.

He dipped his head down next to hers and whispered only loud enough for her to hear. "I'm sorry."

Half way through the procedure she passed out. Luckily for her, she didn't need to be awake for Hershel to sew the gash in her leg which he did upon Daryl's request when he felt it.

Daryl reshirted Lily after her back had been tended to and felt around for other injuries he'd missed when he brought her back and had Hershel tend to the ones he found before she could wake and disagree.

* * *

Ok on a totally random note, would you find it interesting to read a fic from the perspective of a deaf girl during the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes? She has to live in a world and teach people how to communicate with her and can understand how Caesar communicates with the chimps and orangutans and others.


	39. The Next Day

Thank you Nellie, 0netflixme0, cemmia, and r2j591 for the reviews!

* * *

Lily woke to find herself in a cold environment. For a moment she thought she was back in the compound, but remembered she'd been rescued. Opening her eyes, she saw Daryl above her with his head propped against his own arm which was behind her head. Looking down she saw she was in a bath tub, in her clothes, filled with cold water, no doubt for her bruises and other aches and pains. He had held her head to make sure that she didn't accidentally slip into the water and drown.

She reached a cold hand up to his face and patted him gently.

"Can I please get out now? It's cold in here."

His eyes snapped open.

"H-H-How long have I been in here?"

"An hour or so..."

"I'm gonna get hypothermia if I stay here much longer. At least it feels like that."

He grabbed a towel from the wall and helped her crawl out of the tub. Together they curled up on the floor.

"Wow, this would probably be the first time for a situation that you haven't taken my clothes off or found them missing. What a gentleman."

"Oh, shut up," he snickered drawing her closer.

"Daryl," she spoke hardly above a whisper. "I'm so scared. I'm scared of everything around me. I'm scared of getting taken again. It pisses me off that this happens. I'm not even that pretty! I used to hang with my friends and would get passed up like yesterdays fish. I'm tired of being treated like I'm just for sex! I'm a person! I have feelings! I don't want to be scared anymore."

"Well, all those girls are dead and you're still alive. It don't matter what they think or what pretty boys think no more. All you need to worry about are those in front of you who are still alive," he spoke in her ear. "Right now it's just you, me, and the others, ok? Ok? Just hang in there."

"Did Hershel say if my back was going to scar?"

To her surprise, Daryl slid her to the floor and pulled off his shirt. "Glass is what got mine..." he said flatly turning his back to her. "Father was a drunkard..." Scars criss crossed his back like hers would surely look but his had healed many years ago. "Merle was never home when it happened so I was the only one that knew. He beat my mother when the both of us were home. I can't be like my old man." These were the scars she'd seen sticking out from under his shirt when she was checking the arrows wound. He was lucky the deep ones didn't get infected, but now was not the time to say that.

Tears filled her eyes at the thought of a small Daryl getting beat by his father and she pushed herself to her knees and wrapped her arms around him.

Daryl helped her into the bedroom she had become so familiar with and applied some bandages to her back to help the injuries scab over quicker.

She'd fallen asleep by the time a faint knock came from the door. A minute passed before another knock came.

"Who is it?" she asked looking around the room. Daryl was taking a shower in the bathroom.

Carl slowly poked his head in through the opening door.

"Hey, bud," she said readjusting the covers more around herself.

"I don't want to bother you," Carl said nervously making to head to the door. "I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

She smiled weakly at him. "Come on back."

All the sheets were tucked around her covering all that needed covering, so she was not as embarrassed to ask him back.

Hesitantly, he made his way back to the side of the bed sitting down on the floor taking her outstretched hand.

"How are you?"

'I have to smile for him,' she thought.

"I'll be ok in time."

"Why does this keep happening to you?"

As she closed her eyes tears fell down her face. She squeezed his hand.

"Just unlucky I guess."

"I'll protect you! Next time. I promise."

"Let's hope there isn't going to be a next time."

Realization of his statement hit him. "Oh, yeah because I'll stop them!"

"Thanks bud. I'll hang around you when things get bad."

"I won't leave your side!"

His offer at protection was adorable, but she knew she had to be serious and not make him feel like a child.

"Hey, can you help me outside please? I need to speak to Glenn."

His hair bounced up and down as he agreed to help.

"Could you get these off my back and set them over on that chair. When you're done I'll meet you in the hall. I need to get dressed."

The damp bandages were peeled off her back and laid over the chair in the corner before Carl stepped out to the hall.

She pushed her bare-chested self up to put a bra on and a tank top which took all of her strength not to cry out. "Carl," she called embarrassed at herself. He came back in and saw her sitting at the foot of the bed. "Could you help me please? It hurts to walk." She pointed down to her leg which had just been stitched up and wrapped with one of her many damp bandages.

Together they hobbled outside leaving Daryl to finish showering. Glenn was doing something in the shade when they hobbled up.

"Sorry about your foot. I thought you were someone else."

"You were scared. It's understandable."

"Glenn," Lily called walking outside to meet him.

"Lily!" he said excitedly, but his face fell when he realized Daryl wasn't with her. "Where's your shadow?"

"I left him showering."

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, as good I can be considering."

"Oh, good!" He hugged her so tightly she couldn't help but smile.

"Um, there's something I need you to get for me."

Before she could continue he spoke. "If it's what I think it is, Lori might still have some."

"Abortion pills?"

"Yeah. She's got some. Do I need to be discrete about this?" he asked looking nervous.

"No." He sighed relieved. "It's not like it's a secret. I've been raped by thirty men and-and I just don't want to be reminded of it." She fought back tears. "Damn it. I'm tired of crying! I wanna kill it if it exists and it needs to be done now."

He hugged her again before leading her to Lori's tent. The pills were on the table in her tent serving as a reminder of what almost happened.

"Lily," Daryl called calmly from the front porch.

"What do you want, Daryl?" she snapped. When she turned, he saw the pills in her hand. "I'm trying to be quiet about this not that it hasn't crossed some of your minds. Jesus! You could have given me ten minutes...I let you shower without freaking out."

He readjusted the towel around his waist before walking over to her. "You disappear and expect me not to worry?" His hands were large and warm on her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"This is something I wanted to do on my own. Frankly, it's not something I figured you'd wanna hear about so I never told you about it." A lump formed in her throat. "There were so many...one was bound to take and I will not have something that I did not want to be a part of growing inside me. I will not bare the child conceived through rape. I don't care if it's a kicking living mass right now, but I can't have it growing inside me." Talking to him now was harder than she thought but she told herself she wasn't going cry and so far she was doing well.

Daryl moved his hands up and down her arms comfortingly pulling her into his arms.

"It's ok," he whispered. Sometimes she wished he'd stop saying that. "You need to stop wandering off like that. Ok?"

When she thought on it, she never really told anyone where she was going ever. She hardly asked anyone for help because she was trying not to bother anyone.

"You don't have to be independent. Ya can't these days. Now sometimes you worry the group because yer just wandering off. No ya ain't botherin' us but when we can't find ya we worry."

Andrea overheard them and wanted to mention that frequently she'd been worried over Lily's position but chose not to. This was not for her to interfere. Carl wanted to go take Lily's hand but Glenn placed a hand on his shoulder stooping down to his level.

"Hey, this is between them bud." Carl nodded his understanding.


End file.
